Lost On You
by Tavina
Summary: 1920s. Konoha. Heiress Ino Yamanaka runs into mobster Kiba Inuzuka one night in a bar. Their lives are now forever entwined. [Roaring Twenties/Dirty Thirties/The War Years AU. KibaIno. SasuSaku. KakaHana. Sequel to Say When]
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

* * *

"When you get older, plainer, saner, will you remember all the danger we came from?"

— LP, "_Lost on You" _

* * *

Seeing as she's been abandoned by pretty much every friend she could call her own tonight, Ino finds her solace in the bottom of a shot glass.

If it's in a speakeasy well, all the better. What Papa doesn't know certainly won't hurt him in the slightest.

Is it too much to ask that she be allowed to determine her own fate? Is it too much to ask?

Unfortunately, Ino Yamanaka was born to money, so she doesn't get a say in who she marries. Or at least, that had been the gist of her most recent conversation with Papa. Which is, of course, why she has to seek solace at the bottom of a shot glass. She has no desire to marry anyone, much less her childhood best friend Shikamaru Nara and had told Papa so to no avail.

He must be regretting giving her such a long leash now. Ino's got such a long leash that she's considering running off to Kumo. Then, it's not a serious consideration in the slightest. She's too spoiled to survive a day away by herself and loves Papa far too much to ruin him so.

So, so, she's drowning her sorrows with giggle water in a speakeasy, because back when she was sixteen she was madly in love with Shika, but in the years intervening, her childhood daydreams and such, Shikamaru had fallen in love with a woman from Suna who suited him well, and she'd learned to put her love on the top shelf. Though what she's doing now isn't much better than running off if she's being honest with herself, which she most resolutely _isn't. _

Outside, thunder rolls. Some new jazz tune that they're playing behind the bar picks up, the wail of the violin cutting through her thoughts like a dull butter knife.

"Hey there, Pretty. Whatcha doin' tonight?"

She looks up blearily at the stranger who'd dropped onto the barstool beside her. "Nothing you need to know about." Just what she needs, a man at least a decade her senior out for a night of fun.

The man wiggles his eyebrows in a suggestive manner. "Or should I say, _who _you're doing tonight?"

"Get lost." Ino snaps at him. "I'm not interested."

"Now then, Honey." The stranger leans in. "That's not very nice is it?" He sets his hand on her knee and waves at the barkeep. "Let me buy you a drink."

"No." She removes his hand from her thigh in much the same manner she'd remove a dead mouse the cat dragged in. "I don't want you to buy me a drink."

"Don't test me, Pretty." He leers at her and puts his hand back. "I'm—" _What? Armed? Dangerous? A stupid creep who needs to get lost? _

Ino considers hazily, what to do about her current situation. She really hasn't come up with a plan but—

"Hands off my girl." Another voice drawls slowly, lazily, but with an unmistakably dangerous edge. "Or I'll remove it for ya, permanent like."

Both Ino and the creep turn towards the voice. It belongs to a young man in a sleek, fitted, sky blue three-piece. A cigarette dangles from his lips; he wears no hat — _how absolutely scandalous, _Ino thinks — and spats of slate gray felt over his shiny black leather boots.

He would look like a dandy, except he's watching them with narrowed dark eyes and two unmistakable triangle tattoos over his sharp cut cheekbones. _Bootlegger. _Ino's mind handily supplies. _And by the cut of his clothing and those face tattoos, one with a lot of money and complete disregard for the law. _Who else would be brazen enough to have facial tattoos?

She might make it her life's mission to be a rebel, wear sheer dresses that show her knees and go out to speakeasies even when it's by herself, but she's never met an honest to goodness bootlegger before. Strange, they tend to not draw so much attention to themselves like this — sky blue three-piece and all.

"Well," the young man drawls. "Are ya going ta listen ta my good advice and scram or what?" He shakes his suit cuffs back, and Ino notes a flash of gold — real gold cufflinks glitter in the dim light. He looks like he's dressed for a night out to some high end club or opera house, not here, in this dim lit underground bar.

The creep steps off of the barstool and swaggers over. "I'm gonna to say no. Whatcha gonna do about it?"

In the meantime, Ino downs another shot. If there's going to be a pissing contest in front of her between a bootlegger and a regular creep, she's not going to deal with it sober.

"Well now," the bootlegger looks over at Ino. For a split second, their eyes meet, and she thinks she sees flecks of gold in their dark depths. It's a most disconcerting experience that she chalks up to having too much to drink. "I guess I'll just have ta make ya apologize ta my girl."

The creep throws the first punch, but the bootlegger moves far too fast for some common drunk to take out. There's a spray of blood, which somehow doesn't land on that marvelously fashionable three-piece, a sharp crack of something that sounds like bone, and a pained scream. It's all over before Ino can finish her second glass.

The bootlegger's broken the creep's arm and his nose without so much as getting a strand of his slicked back hair out of place.

"Now, I bet you're all good and sorry like." The bootlegger growls as he drags the creep towards her. "'Pologize proper now, for messin' around with a lady."

"I'm sorry!" The broken man on the floor blubbers as he cradles his broken arm.

Ino sees the insincerity in his eyes though and turns up her nose as much as she's able without bothering her aching head. "Not accepted." Tomorrow's going to hurt like a bitch.

Out of the corner of her eye, she notes the shocked silence that's fallen over the speakeasy. The rest of the patrons are frozen in place.

The bootlegger notices how much attention they've drawn too, because he rubs the back of his neck, suddenly more like a schoolboy with his pink cheeks than a dangerous criminal. "Heya, Sweetheart. Sorry 'bout the trouble, but we need ta quit this place real fast if we don't wanna spend the night in a holding cell."

It takes a moment for Ino to recognize that he's speaking to her. It takes another moment for her to register the sound of the sirens wailing off in the distance. The city police are on their way to breakup the fight.

Some neighbor must have called the cops. _Well then, it's time to blow this joint. _

It takes less than half a moment for her to take his outstretched hand and for him to sweep her off her feet and into the passenger seat of a Model J. Despite the rain, it makes for a romantic picture — her flapper outfit, complete with the lilac gloves, feathered hat, and lace shawl and his dashing sky blue three-piece.

He really is rather handsome up close in a dangerous, mobster sort of way.

"Where are we going?" She asks him, suddenly aware that he could in fact be the more stylish version of the creep she'd just been talking to. "And who are you?"

"The name's Kiba." He nods to her politely as he turns back to check behind them as they pull out of the lot. _Oh, that's where his hat was. _It's a wide brim panama with a single wilted violet tucked into the band thrown hastily over onto the back seat like he'd left it in a hurry. At least he didn't have a complete dearth of fashion sense, and his car is a sweet, sweet ride. "Kiba Inuzuka. Might I have the lady's name?"

Kiba presses down on the accelerator, and the engine rumbles like a panther's pur before they're on the road well ahead of the searching police lights.

It takes a moment for what he's said to catch up to her. It might be just the amount of whiskey she's downed tonight though, making all of her thoughts slow like old molasses.

Inuzuka.

Well, that's...good she supposes. She's only been picked up by a big shot from one of the largest mobs around. The Wolves aren't to be messed with in Konoha or a fifty mile radius out of it. They're real close to their chests about who their leaders are, but if Kiba isn't a big shot, then where'd he get the money for those clothes?

_What did I do to get such luck?_

"Ino." She says, politely because it's hard not to be polite when you're stuck in a car with a wanted criminal and presumably all his weapons.

Kiba grunts as they make a sharp right and then a left, and then another left. The downtown streets blur together through the softly falling rain. "Bush clover, huh. It's a pretty name." He doesn't bother to mention that she also has a pretty face.

Men have been mentioning that about her ever since she turned fifteen. "So just my name, huh."

It's not as if she wants him to leer and make lewd comments about what he'd like to do to her. He's been a perfect gentleman so far, except for the bar incident, but she can't let go of her vanity either. It makes for an awkward combination.

"Sweetheart," Kiba drawls as they cruise down a deserted backroad. "Right now ya look wrecked, so forgive me for not complimenting your makeup, or hair, or dress, or anything." He turns to her; they pass a gaslight, and his face is surprisingly serious for such casual words. "My sis taught me if I don't have anything nice ta say, I shouldn't say anything at all."

So maybe she's been drinking all night. Maybe she doesn't look her best, but it hurts all the same. "Let me out of the car." She tugs at the passenger side door but finds that it's locked. She turns to him. "Let me out."

He keeps driving, speed picking up now that they're farther out of center city. "No."

A tendril of fear grips her heart. _Would Papa even know where she went if he didn't give her back? _"What do you mean, no?"

Is he taking her to some private place to kill her? Rape her? Sell her? Who knows what depths a mobster and a bootlegger will sink to? Moral degradation doesn't seem to register on the scales of his conscience, so...what does that mean about her fate?

He doesn't respond as he takes another turn.

"_What do you mean, no?_" She hisses at him. He'd called her his girl earlier. Did he mean it in any way besides trying to get the creep to step away without starting a fist fight? Which, to be fair, he'd courted and then brutally finished even so. "Kiba Inuzuka, _where are we going?_"

She sounds stronger than she feels. Except for the slurring of her words and her pounding head, she could be normal, be Ino Yamanaka, perfect hostess and the height of Konoha fashion. Inside though, there are a thousand fears turning to ice in her veins.

Is he going to kidnap her and hold her for ransom? How will Papa hold his head up in polite society after this gets out?

"I mean you're drunk and far away from home." He drums his fingers on the steering wheel as they come to a stop underneath a gas lamp. "I'm sure ya can call a cabby, but I wouldn't trust them as much as I can throw them at this time of the morning." He gestures to the door. "Ya can get out here if you want, or we can go somewhere where your expensive lace shawl won't get ruined with the rain."

Just to prove his point, lightning flashes, illuminating the rain streaked windows.

Vanity or safety? Vanity and dubious safety or ruined clothes and the chance that she'd never get home ever again?

She doesn't know where the safety is, but her vanity demands that she stay inside.

"You're not goin' anywhere are ya, Sweetheart." Kiba huffs a laugh as he restarts the car. "Thought so."

He doesn't feel dangerous, not in that vaguely creepy way that men do when they stare too long. He's like a school boy still, like they're going on some grand adventure. He's been a friendly sort so far.

It was a safer decision to stay in the car. "Where are we going?"

"My sister's house." He shrugs. "I live with her, ya know."

Ino nods along. "Now I do." Even less chance that something's happening now. If he holds his sister in such high regard as to still be living with her and quoting her life lessons at his age, then he probably isn't someone who'd kidnap or murder a woman.

Probably. Ino's quite willing to admit if she ends up having to call Papa for ransom sometime tomorrow morning, it'll be because the giggle water's gone straight to her head and making her do stupid things.

She's never seen the inside of a bootlegger's house before. Some part of her's still curious as to how a young dandy who acts like a schoolboy ended up becoming big shot mobster.

They keep driving through the rain slicked streets, out of the city and toward the suburbs.

Ino lives on the west shore of the Nakano River, in the neighborhood known as the Bend. Kiba takes the bridge out toward the east shore and into a ritzy, upper class neighborhood that Ino's never seen before in her life.

"Where are we?" She asks as she stares out at the balcony style houses painted in various colorful shades.

"The Water Gardens." Kiba turns down into a wide avenue and then into a gated lane on the end of the block. "Named for the famous fountain gardens in the center of the neighborhood." He sticks his head out of the car window. "Hey, Shin. I'm home, but I'm late. Ya mind not tellin' Sis 'bout that?"

"Aww, Kiba, do ya gotta make my life hard like this?" The guard at the gate gives Kiba a once over and sighs. "But yeah, I'll not mention it ta Queenie. She asks me about it 'n I'm sellin' ya up the river."

"Thanks a bunch." Kiba pulls himself back into the car and shakes the water from his hair with casual disregard. "Welp." He taps his fingers on the steering wheel as the gate's cranked up in front of them. "This is goin' better than I hoped."

There's trees on either side of them, well tended flower beds and all, though she can't make out the specifics through the rain and her pounding headache. Her eyelids are heavy, and her head is killing her, and everything's a little fuzzy around the edges.

She doesn't remember the specifics of the inside of the house, or where Kiba parked the car, or anything. She blacks out long before that.

* * *

"So where do ya live?" She's in the car with Kiba again the next morning, though his slow drawl interacting with her hangover makes her want to cringe and cry. If she doesn't pay attention, she'll miss half his words or forget the beginning of his sentence after getting caught up in her aching head.

She'd borrowed a dress from his sister, or at least, he said the wine-red evening gown belonged to his sister.

It's not something a respectable working class woman would wear, and it's not really flapper fashion as the hem is nearly at her feet, but something older, like a new-aged dress modeled after a ball gown. It's a strangely fashionable piece. Ino thinks she rather likes it.

He's in another three-piece today — this one a dark forest green — with a fresh violet tucked into the band of his panama. _At least he knows how to go places in style, even if he is a wanted criminal, _Ino laments to herself. _Why does the one of the few fashionable young men I happen to meet have to be a wanted criminal?_

"The Bend." There's no harm in telling him that. He hadn't taken advantage of her when she was completely sozzled, so there's no reason to think he'd suddenly kidnap her _now _when his job is exponentially harder. "Number Three, Magnolia."

He whistles. "That's uppercrust."

She glances over at him. "You drive a Model J, wear tailored three-pieces and live in the Water Gardens with a gatekeeper on duty at wee hours of the morning. I don't think you have the space to talk."

He grins at her wolfishly with a hint of fang before turning to look backwards at the oncoming traffic. "Ah, but I lived in the Pleat for a long time when I was little, Sweetheart. I betcha never left the Bend unless it was to go downtown."

The Pleat is still one of the poorest slums in Konoha, and from what she's heard, a cesspit of sin, poverty, and crime.

It's hard to imagine the stylish bootlegger next to her ever living in such a place. For one, he knows how to dress the way that most self-made men didn't. For another, he's been as cheerful as a college student this entire time. She thought people who were poor wouldn't act like him, but apparently she was wrong.

It makes sense that he'd react to her neighborhood the way he did now. "You're right. I haven't." She's lived with Papa all her life, and they've always been in Number Three, Magnolia. Across the street are the Harunos at Number Six and down into the circle are the Nara and the Akimichi. No one moves out of the Bend really, unless they leave in shame and bankruptcy — that hasn't happened in Ino's lifetime — and no one moves into it.

There's not a family on the block who would sell their family house for any amount of money.

He nods. "Hmmm." They're on the bridge again, and he makes a highly illegal u-turn onto the side going to West Shore. All around them, there's screeching as cars come to a sudden stop, and as drivers lean on their horns. "Can't say I blame ya."

"Kiba!" He'd been driving so fast they nearly shot off of the bridge.

He throws his head back and laughs. "Every day's an adventure, Sweetheart. Don't take it too serious, or you'll die that way, and ya won't have had any fun while you're at it."

"I don't want to die!" She clutches the back of her seat. "I'm too young to die!" _And too pretty. _What a picture it would make if they did die though. She can see the newspaper headlines now — two stylish young people out for a joy ride in Daddy's Model J, nevermind it isn't true.

He looks over at her, sidelong, though he puts his eyes back on the road a moment later. "Yeah." He agrees slowly. "Too young to die s'bout right." He chuckles though, a boy's smile on his face, no scheming, no angling, none of that, just happy amusement crinkling the corners of his dark brown eyes. "But it scared the headache out of ya, so that's a plus, yeah?"

She blinks. "I'm...my head doesn't hurt anymore."

"Uh-huh, Sweetheart."

They take a slower route into the Bend after that.

There's something she likes about Kiba Inuzuka. Maybe it's because he's been the first person to listen to her for a long, long time. So many people in her life just want to talk at her instead of to her.

Maybe it's because he's stylish, and young, and exciting with a dash of danger mixed in. His life exists on the fringes of her day to day normal, and he feels like a grand adventure. Ino's always been a sucker for a bad boy.

Or maybe it's because he's got a nice laugh. It could just be the aura of golden cheer around him. Ino hasn't had much to laugh about in a long while.

Whatever the reason, she likes him.

* * *

Papa pulls the pistol on Kiba when he walks her to the door. "Get away from my daughter." There's an angry firmness in Papa's eyes.

Kiba obligingly puts his hands up, though there's definitely an undercurrent of tension in the line of his shoulders. She can't imagine having a gun drawn on him is a fun experience. "Hey, I'm not some sort of hooligan, Old Man."

"Papa!" Ino reaches across for the hand on the pistol. "Don't, he was very polite about bringing me—"

"Don't speak to me about polite, Cosmos!" She's never seen Papa this mad. "Bringing you home in the morning, not even bothering to notify anyone where you were. He's a right cad. And you!" He rounds on Ino. "I've been lenient with you all your life, but there's a limit to my leniency, young lady. Get into the house."

Reluctantly, Ino steps onto the porch.

Kiba sticks his hands in his pockets, slouching down with his panama pulled low over his eyes. "Whatcha gonna do, Old Bastard? Shoot me right in the middle of your pretty flower lawn? I ain't done a thing wrong, and this is the thanks I get? You're makin' me reconsider doin' good deeds."

"Nothing wrong?" Papa snarls. "You're a bootlegger, a criminal of the worst sort. You're responsible for the moral degradation of an entire city, and you've done nothing wrong?"

"Oh, I betcha got some smuggled goods in that fancy house of yours. Ain't an uppercrust house in this city who don't." Kiba snaps back. "An' who're the ones who got it there? Ya serve it at your garden party, an' it's a comfort. Me or one of the boys get it ya, and we're like worse than dirt, yeah? Now don'tcha go 'round thinkin' I'm some sorta rapist. My sis brought me up t'be a gentleman, an' insult me all ya want, but leave my sis outta it. It'll break her heart ta hear such a thing, so keep ya damn mouth shut."

"Off of my property." The barrel of the pistol shakes just a little. "Now."

Kiba turns around and stalks his way over to his car. "Yeah, yeah, I get it, ya old bastard. You're worse than Old Man Hyuga, ya know that? He's never thrown a hissy fit 'cause I stepped on his stupid grass lawn." The car door slams behind him. There's a screech as he slides over a gravel patch, and then Kiba's gone.

Papa shuts the door behind himself drops the pistol with a thunk onto the carpeted floor. "Don't you ever scare me like that again, Cosmos. I had heart palpitations when you stepped out of that car."

"No, Papa. I won't." Ino frowns. "But Papa, you shouldn't have threatened him with the pistol." For one, she's not entirely certain about Kiba's temperament. He'd seemed plenty angry when he left, though she doesn't think he'd come back to attack Papa. For another, it was very rude of Papa to accuse him of derogatory things simply because he's a bootlegger. "He—" Oh how to explain to Papa without giving away where she was last night? "He saved me from a bad situation, and he wasn't the least bit different than a normal gentleman."

She means Kiba's manners toward her. He certainly didn't think like the stale gentlemen that she has to meet and smile and greet at every opera viewing, garden party, and charity ball, and as far as she knows, he doesn't act like one either.

"Where did you go last night? Whose dress are you wearing?" Papa sits down on a nearby chair in the entryway. It's been newly dusted by the maid, but it is out of character for her mild and impeccably mannered Papa.

"It's his sister's." Ino sighs. "If you have to know where I went, it was the speakeasy under the old market on Sweet Rue Street in the city." It's best to pull the bait and switch she supposes. Papa will be displeased about the speakeasy visiting, and then forget to be angry about Kiba.

_I do hope you're grateful about my distracting Papa so he doesn't set the law on your tail. Otherwise, he'd be at Uncle Shikaku's in a jiffy, and you'd be in a jail cell._

"Ino, you know what I think about drinking." Papa pins her with a hard look that rapidly softens into something like grief. "You're still upset about marrying Shikamaru, aren't you?"

She didn't want him to start up about this whole business again, but she can't very well say that, so all she does is nod and turn away.

"Oh, Ino." Papa sighs. "You know that the contract's been arranged for years now." When she turns back to look at him, he has his head in his hands, bangs falling over his forehead as if he's run his hands through his hair too many times. She'd really worried him when she didn't come home last night.

For a brief and quiet moment, Ino is struck by a horrible sense of guilt. Papa dotes on her endlessly, but she's never quite been able to fit herself into all the facets of a lady of her breeding. Her flapper dresses and drinking is proof enough of that.

"I don't understand it, Cosmos. You like Shikamaru well enough. Why are you so upset?"

_Because Shikamaru loves someone, and it isn't me_, is on the tip of her tongue, but something clogs up in her throat and all she can really manage is a simple "I don't know, Papa. I just don't want to."

There's enough disappointment radiating from Papa to drown in. It makes her uncomfortable. It makes her sad and resigned.

Marrying someone from Suna isn't exactly unheard of, but it's very unconventional. Having a relationship with someone before getting married is also highly unconventional. If word got out, it would tank Shikamaru's reputation.

And maybe Ino's hurt and cut up over what's happened between them in the past few years — She'd always known she would marry Shika, and Shika had always know he would marry her, and they are good enough friends that they could be happy if they just made the effort, so why, why wasn't she good enough? — but she still calls him a friend, and she won't ruin him, or Uncle Shikaku's law firm by being a snitch.

She retreats to the gardens and surrounds herself with evening primroses, enough to make anyone else green with envy, and resolves not to think about it.

She can put it off until tomorrow. The wedding's not anytime soon. She can put it off until tomorrow, and her eyes fall closed.

She falls asleep in the garden, dreaming of sky-blue three-pieces and a flash of golden eyes.

* * *

She doesn't see Kiba again for months after that. Papa holds the purse strings on her allowance hostage and has the maids pour his stash of liquor down the drain of the kitchen sink. In short, he treats her like a child, though Ino's hard pressed to protest, given how much she worried him the last time she snuck out.

"Come on, Ino. Cheer up." Sakura looks up from applying her rouge in the mirror. "We're going out to support the Widows and Orphans Fund tonight. At least try to look like you want to be there."

"It's not like I don't want to be there." Ino holds the lipstick stencil before her face and centers herself so she can draw on the Cupid's bow. "It's just—" she sets her lipstick down and sighs. "I don't want to marry Shika." She can tell Sakura this, though she's not sure she can tell her childhood best friend about her dreams of gold eyes, crooked smiles, and a slowly drawling voice.

For goodness sake, she's only ever met him once, and it was a terribly uncomfortable and unconventional meeting.

"I know." Sakura turns around. "I don't think this is something you can get out of though. Mr. Yamanaka takes his promises seriously and that contract's been drawn up since before I knew you." Sakura studies her face some more. "Ino, are you carrying a torch for anyone?"

Ino shakes her head. "I'm not. I just don't want to." She doesn't want this, doesn't want to hurt Shika, doesn't want to hurt herself.

If she gets married to Shika, she'll hurt herself over it sometime. If she doesn't marry Shika, she'll hurt him and his reputation. There's no way to win. The only question is if she's selfish enough to refuse right up until they drag her to the altar.

"Well," Sakura comes over to do her hair. "I wouldn't say that Shika's the absolute worst to get married to, and you'll be well taken care of if you do in every way." Sakura slaps her hands down on the vanity table. "Oh, what am I saying? True love conquers all. I would offer to run away to Kumo with you, but I don't think we'd get far. You'd want to come back twenty miles down the road."

Ino shrugs. "I didn't expect you to fund my running away. I never intended to run away. It's just made me blue is all." No. Ino Yamanaka isn't fond of running.

Ino Yamanaka's going nowhere even if she's going to her doom.

She looks up to find Sakura staring at her, long and hard. "I do hope you'll be alright, Ino." Sakura's hug is sudden. "You've always been a sister to me, you know."

Ino laughs. "Yeah, I know it." Somewhere in the back of her mind, there's a long slow drawl dragging out the yeah, and following it with a pause. _Yeah, Sweetheart, don't I know it. _She shakes the thought away.

They're out the door by six o'clock on the dot, Papa, Sakura, and her. Dr. Haruno has a late shift at Konoha General tonight, so it is just the three of them bundling into the car in their long autumn coats.

They make it to the town hall in good time. Everyone's here. Everyone who's somebody, everyone who cares about what other people think, everyone who has a good heart, everyone's here.

"Have you heard the news, Inoichi?" Mayor Sarutobi hurries over. "Our biggest donor finally consented to give a speech tonight." The old man smiles around his pipe. "It'll be the biggest event of the year."

"Really." Papa raises an eyebrow. "This mysterious donor hasn't ever decided to come to these sorts of gatherings before."

There's a great philanthropist in the city who everyone denies knowing. The same person who has donated to the Widows and Orphans' Fund has donated to the Disabled Veterans' Fund, the Salvation Army, Goodwill, soup kitchens, settlement houses, and unions all across the Pleat and other poor districts.

It's clear that he has money to burn, and he burns it frequently in these sorts of causes, but it is equally clear that he prefers to keep out of the public eye. No one has ever been able to say with any sort of certainty who this philanthropist is, and in the absence of fact, they substituted on rumor. Almost every man who lives in the Bend has been questioned several times about the charity.

For a long time, everyone suspected Dr. Haruno, or perhaps Police Chief Uchiha, but Sakura had quickly put those rumors to rest — she had an in with the Uchihas from her betrothal to Sasuke Uchiha, and everyone knows to take her word on it regarding her own father.

"Well, they'll be here tonight. I received a letter from a verifiable source saying that they will make an appearance."

Everywhere in the hall, it is all anyone can talk about. "Did you hear?"

"Do you know?"

"The donor's going to be here."

"Do you suppose he's old?"

"He can't be that old right? Even if he's been doing this for a while."

"Imagine. Perhaps he's a bachelor."

"Ah, do you suppose he's handsome?"

Sakura leans over to whisper in Ino's ear. "Think of how silly they'll look when the man himself shows up, and he's old, balding, and would be the type to wave a cane at the children on his lawn, all fusty and grumpy."

Ino stifles a giggle. "That would be a cruel joke indeed." Sakura's gotten more outwardly irreverent these past few years. Ino likes the change, likes that Sakura's grown into a confident young woman who isn't afraid to speak her mind. By marrying into the Uchihas, she'll need it. They're all a strong-willed people. Sakura will have to hold her own.

"I know, right?" Sakura's betrothal is nothing like hers. It had been made by chance, when she and Sasuke had met one night down in a now closed down speakeasy. As it turns out, the boy who used to pull her pigtails has grown up into a polite young man.

Personally, Ino finds him stiff, but Sakura likes him so that's all that matters. They'd met, danced, and fallen in love in short order. Sasuke had broached the discussion to his father, and the engagement had been finalized just last year. They have a wedding planned for the spring. It'll be a big one, and Ino will be a bridesmaid, all in a pretty pastel pink and everything will be beautiful.

A hush falls over the gathered crowd.

A car no one knows has pulled up to the curb.

Ino however, has to cover her mouth so her gasp isn't audible. _How many people in this city would own a Model J? _She shakes her head. _No, I can't think about—_

A black leather boot half covered by a gray felt spat hits the curb first. Out steps what looks like a young dandy in a black three-piece. There's a violet tucked in the wide band of his panama.

Kiba Inuzuka steps out of his car and strides over to the passenger door. He offers the person on the other side a hand. A gloved hand takes his and out steps a woman in a plum-purple dress, a silk shawl drawn over her shoulders more as a fashion item than to keep out the chill.

Kiba bends over and kisses the hand. Then, he grins all crooked smile and flashing fangs.

From the other side of the hall, Ino spots a flash of red on the woman's cheeks that is most certainly not rouge. Her tattoos match Kiba's exactly.

_Who's that? _

Another man in a dark gray three-piece falls in behind them. His hair is ash gray.

On her other side, Papa stiffens.

The crowd parts for the small group of three as they take the stage. When they do make it to the center, Kiba takes a step back and leaves the woman alone in the lights.

She smiles with a hint of sharpness. "So," she says, slow, voice sliding smoothly into a slight drawl. "My little brother pleaded one too many times that I should step out and take the glory, and I can deny him nothing, so I'm here." The crowd below erupts in hushed whispers.

"...a woman?"

"Fangs…"

Now, Ino knows exactly who this is. Kiba's vaunted older sister. She's surprised that the philanthropist is a woman, but she's a little more surprised that Kiba's sister also wears the same tattoos as the Wolves.

"For those of you who don't know me," the woman continues. "My name is Hana Inuzuka. I'm Kiba Inuzuka's older sister." At this moment, Kiba gives a little wave and a smile.

Their eyes meet from across the hall. Ino has no idea how he had even seen her in the crowd of hundreds, but she'd been looking at him, and suddenly he looks her way, and the world just drops out. Whatever Ms. Inuzuka was saying is gone now.

He has eyes the color of raw earth in the springtime, shining with flecks of gold. She hadn't seen wrong the first time. His eyes do really flash gold in the electric lights. He gives her a little upward nod and a grin. Her heart stutters as though it's drunk, and she has no idea _why_.

His lips move. _Sweetheart. _

Sakura shakes her out of it. "Ino!" She hisses. "What's gotten into you?"

And Ino finds that she has absolutely no idea. It might have something to do with that crooked smile.

* * *

She still has no idea half an hour later when she opens the first tango in Kiba's arms. Somehow, she's ended up here. "Ya look even less fine than the last time I saw ya, Sweetheart. An' ya spent most of that completely sozzled." There's maybe a hint of concern in his voice. "Something the matter?"

"I think you have made a series of bad decisions tonight." Ino tells him breathlessly as they go through another set and he dips her low. "Papa may like as not kill you this time."

Kiba shrugs. "Why, he wouldn't commit murder. That wouldn't be respectable." There's a hint of a laugh in his eyes.

They spin around the floor once more before Ino can catch her breath again from all the giggling she's done in the meantime. "Oh, that's rich coming from you!"

In retaliation, Kiba spins her faster, his hand on the small of her back as he catches her again. "I'm plenty respectable when I wanna be, Sweetheart. Why, respectable is my middle name."

This forces her into another fit of giggles. She shouldn't be on the dance floor with a stranger right now, certainly not when she's been engaged to Shika since childhood, but something about Kiba's always been amusing and fun.

She can't help herself really. "Black certainly does make you look respectable." The only flash of color he's wearing tonight is his red tattoos.

He grins. "Ya think so? It's a boring color's what it is. All that conformity, no self expression."

"Well," She allows. "Maybe it isn't _as _flattering as a sky-blue three-piece."

He nods along. "Ya betcha it isn't. Nothing's quite as good as a well-made blue."

They're just ending the next set when Shika taps Kiba on the shoulder. "Mind if I cut in?"

Kiba turns to him with a brazen smile and sharp eyes. "Matter of fact I do." _Ah. You can give a mobster a respectable suit, but you can't make him respectable. _

_He's just the same as when we met — brazen, rude, on the edge of violence._

Ino pulls her hand away. "I'm going to say it's okay."

"Why, Sweetheart, you're gonna let this bluenose cut into our night?" He doesn't try to get her hand back though, just stands there, a little off to the side of the dance floor.

"That _bluenose,_" and yes, her time spent with Kiba has been fun so far, but Shika's been her friend since childhood and doesn't deserve to be insulted when he's been perfectly polite. "Is my fiance."

"Ah." Kiba tips his hat in Shikamaru's direction. "Well, good meetin' ya then." He steps away, moving across the floor accompanied by a veritable storm of whispers.

Shika joins her for the next set. "How do you know him?"

Ino finds herself at a loss as to how to respond exactly. How exactly does one tell one's fiance that one was so upset at the thought of having to marry him that one decided to drown oneself in cheap illegal liquor and then met a mobster who broke some creep's hand?

Well, one can't say that, so it's best to say nothing at all. Ino shrugs. "I met him around."

It's not the right thing to say, but it's the best she can do.

"I think we need to talk, Ino." Dancing with Shikamaru is a stiff task. There's no embellishments or frills in anything he does and that translates to a dry dancing style. "Would you be willing to meet in the teahouse on Peachtree street?"

Ino casts her eyes down toward her feet. "What time?" She can guess what the meeting's for. It just won't be pretty.

"Monday morning, ten o'clock." Shika spins her around and pulls her back. "You look better tonight than you've been in a while, Ino."

She does her best to smile, even if he's going to see through it without a second glance. "Thank you." She's known Shika since they were both toddlers. It's not hard to know what he's thinking.

_I wish he wouldn't try to encourage me when he knows I won't be encouraged this way. _

Sakura pulls her off the dance floor to ask about Kiba as soon as the set with Shika is finished, and Ino can barely contain her friend from trying to squeeze all the pieces out of her without breaking off their friendship completely.

Sometimes, she wishes the ground could just open up and swallow her so that she doesn't have to answer other people's questions about her life. _Just a little bit of privacy and the ability to do what I want. _

_Am I asking too much from life? _

* * *

Papa allows her to go out to meet Shika on Monday morning with ill grace. "I don't know why you were dancing and laughing with that good for nothing cad on Friday, Cosmos, but even if his sister's a philanthropist they're still funding our moral organizations with dirty money."

"I'm just going to see Shika, Papa." Ino resists the urge to think too deeply about why Papa so decidedly does not like Kiba, even after she told him the full story of events. "He'll even pick me up at the door."

"It's good to know that the two of you are talking again." Papa cups her cheek with a hand. "You and Shikamaru are much alike." That is true.

They both come from money, from the Bend, from a common history and a common interest.

She hadn't been happy with avoiding Shika anyway. There's a rap on the door and a maid hurries into the study to announce a Mr. Nara.

Ino kisses her papa on the cheek. "Well, I'm going then."

Shika opens the door of the car for her. She sits down by herself though, because she's not some doll.

"Do you want to wait until we get to the teahouse to talk?" Shika stares straight ahead at the road. "Or would you like this to happen now?"

"I can wait until I meet her." The only reason she can think of to make Shika want to talk in public is because they can't invite his girl from Suna in any of their houses. "That's what we're doing today isn't it? You want your fiancee to meet your girl?"

He sighs. "We need to discuss this sometime."

And they do. They do need to discuss the rest of their lives sometime. It's just well, she doesn't want to. She's been doing a lot of stuff she doesn't want to these days.

"I'll wait until we get there." She can put it off for another half hour or more at the moment.

The traffic around them moves slowly, and Shika never takes any chances. For a brief moment as they head over the bridge, she wishes for that one wild u-turn that had nearly thrown the car off the siding. _Oh, what am I thinking? I don't actually want to die. _

It's stupid is all. She has her life, and by the looks of it, Kiba does too.

Their lives aren't supposed to intersect.

Shika opens the door for her when they arrive at the teahouse, though they do not walk in arm in arm. "I believe we already have a reservation." He slides a bill across the table toward the hostess. "Ms. Sabaku should already be here. A table for three?"

The older matron nods. "Right this way."

They are led to a booth just a little ways off to the side.

"You ran into traffic again, Shika?" Ms. Temari Sabaku is, in fact, here before them. She's a woman with sandy blonde hair and flat green eyes, perhaps a few years older than them.

Shika shrugs. "It happens." He gestures briefly in Ino's direction. "Might I introduce my fiancee, Ms. Ino Yamanaka?" Ino curtsies slightly, and he turns to her. "And this is Ms. Temari Sabaku."

"A pleasure." Temari smiles a slight edge to her cheer.

"Likewise." Ino smiles back. _It was best to meet in a public space. _

_Shika always thinks of everything. _

Shikamaru drops into a chair with a heavy sigh. "I think we all know why we're here." He pulls a few sheets of paper out of his briefcase. "This contract has been signed and dated for at least fourteen years by now, and there are several properties whose ownership will take years to determine satisfactorily now so intertwined as they are between my father and Ino's. If we cannot come to a satisfactory agreement, they will be turned over to the state. This of course, will leave us both destitute."

"You've mentioned." Temari takes a sip of her tea and sets it down primly. "I have already told you I don't care who you marry. I'll love you just the same."

Ino reaches across the table for the papers. They are only copies of course, the original documents are still held in trust at the bank. _These are largely our properties. _She sees the hothouses where her cousin, Fu, manages the winter roses, several large tracts of land where their tulips are grown, a great deal of Yamanaka property is tied up in this contract.

To have them ceded back to the state… _This would bankrupt Papa. _

And there are Uncle Shikaku's law offices, records of investments that go back at least a decade, the house the Naras own by the shore. Nevermind just bankrupting Papa to have this go back to the state, it would bankrupt Uncle Shikaku as well. Together, it is a formidable sum of money and property.

The final possible date for a wedding is set for Shika's twentieth birthday next September.

Papa had ensured that she would always live well the best he could.

"I don't want to go into a marriage like this." Shika covers his face in his hands. "But the simple fact to the matter is that if we allow these properties to revert back to the state then we will both be destitute, and it will also break our parents' hearts."

"How long will it take to disentangle this contract?" If they can get this straightened before his birthday next year, they wouldn't need to get married.

"Longer then a year." Shika rubs his temples with his fingers. "This is such a mess. It isn't fair to either of you."

Temari smiles, razor sharp. "Well, life doesn't happen to be concerned with fairness, Shika." It's clear that she cares about Shika, that she's good for him. She douses him with reality when he gets to deep into his own head when all Ino could have done is panic along with him. "All we can do is the best we can." Temari cuts her gaze across to Ino. "Would you mind if your husband doesn't love you?"

Ino raises her chin. "I've a year to come to terms with it. I'll manage."

Temari's expression turns wry. "I honestly didn't know about any of this when I first met him." But she doesn't say she wouldn't have fallen in love with him if she did.

Ino shrugs. "It's not your fault." It's nobody's fault besides the stupid desire between Papa and Uncle Shikaku to see their children well off well after they are both dead. These properties that have been bound together have earned far more money than if they were separate, backed as they were by two rich men instead of one.

It happened out of the goodness of their hearts. No one could have foreseen that years later, it would be the noose to hang the both of them in.

"I'll try to get this under control as soon as possible. There'll have to be time to figure this out." Shika runs a hand through his spiky hair. "There just has to be."

Temari sets a hand on his shoulder. "Deep breaths. Time will lay the path clear when you calm down."

Yes, they are good for each other. Ino sees it when she looks at them and fights the bitter wish to have someone in her life like that too.

The doorbell chimes. "Watch your step, 'nata." She knows that voice.

There, by the door, is Kiba dressed radically today in a wine red waistcoat and matching pants and jewel toned tie. He isn't wearing a vest over his white shirt this morning.

Beside him is the Hyuga Heiress. Her father, Hiashi Hyuga made his money in the oil fields out west, Ino recalls.

He flips a bill over onto the table. "A room in the back for me an' 'nata here." He's most likely just dropped a lot of money, because the hostess looks almost scared to pick it up.

"Kiba!" Hinata covers her smile with a hand. "No, a booth in the front is just fine. We're only here for tea and a conversation."

"Aww, but we've got to celebrate your engagement somehow." Kiba grins easily. "Your longtime crush? The Senator's son? He finally looked your way, _and_ ya get a lifetime outta the deal? You're over the moon. This calls for celebration doesn't it?"

"Oh, well," Hinata blushes prettily. "If you're certain…" It's interesting that he knows Hinata Hyuga. The young woman is very reserved and doesn't prefer to go out in public often, so seeing her here and friendly with a mobster is nothing shy of astounding. Not to mention, Hiashi Hyuga keeps an extensively tight leash on both of his daughters.

_You're worse than Old Man Hyuga, you know that? _Kiba had mentioned his connection to the Hyugas before...and she really shouldn't be paying attention to that.

The two who'd just walked in disappear with the hostess into the back. The whole exchange had maybe lasted half a minute.

When Ino turns back to her table, Shika's got a hard grip on his tea. "He's a wanted criminal, but absolutely no one can cut through the red tape around him." Shika glances over at her. "He's a criminal, Ino. If the law ever gets their hands on him, it won't be a jail cell that'll greet him."

Her blood runs cold. _Execution is reserved for murderers only in Konoha. _

But he'd been fun, and considerate, and so absolutely charming that it's nearly impossible to think that he's committed murder before.

Well, it's nearly impossible. She hasn't forgotten how easily he'd broken a man's arm in a bar for a girl he's never met before. Casual violence seems to be in his blood.

"Let's get back to business, Shika." She turns back to the documents. "Who does the warehouse on Chester Avenue belong to? It's being used for seed storage by Papa right now, but Uncle Shikaku's invested a good deal of money in it too." That's the problem with a good portion of these properties. They don't have a clear cut answer regarding ownership and even settling one of these in court would be a headache and a half.

There's no less than seven in their contract.

"Well, we can't sell the building. You're still using it." Shika underlines a portion in red pen. "We'll just have to see if Father's part of the investment can be paid off, and present that to Judge Jiraiya as an out for joint ownership… As for the next, well…"

* * *

**A.N. **Well, this has been kicking around in my drafts since the beginning of semester last August, and it's up to a good 30K words, so I figured I should start sharing this particular AU which is kind of near and dear to my heart. It's gonna be a very long fic though, so strap yourselves in for a long adventure. We're gonna get through the 1920s, the 1930s, the 1940s, and possibly parts of the 1950s. (If I don't run out of energy first.)

I should probably also warn you all that I've been reading too much F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gone with the Wind recently, so this fic probably has the same level of drama as those things. This romance is not much like the Sun/Moon romance that I've written before, which means it's more of a drama and less of a fluffy feels fic. You've been warned.

Perhaps this shall join the ranks of the regularly scheduled fanfiction. At any rate, it's another WIP to add to my ever growing pile of WIPs.

Thank you all so much for reading.

~Tavina


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

* * *

"Burning like embers, falling tender. Longing for the days of no surrender years ago

And will you know?"

— LP, "_Lost on You" _

* * *

Sakura's wedding planning comes around faster than she thinks it will. "Sasuke and I have decided that it'll be a small one." They are sitting in one of the hothouses, choosing flowers for the tables and Sakura's bouquet at the moment.

Ino has her planner open on her lap as Sakura looks through the collection of roses. "Really? I suspect that as soon as Mrs. Uchiha gets to it, it'll be the biggest wedding of the century."

Sasuke's elder brother isn't married yet after all, and likely never will be, if the whispers of consumption are true. Mrs. Uchiha has to celebrate her youngest's wedding somehow, and her parties have always been lavish. A wedding must be exponentially more so.

"No, no." Sakura waves her off. "I've already cleared it with my future mother-in law. The ceremony at least will be manageable. I only want a maid of honor, and Sasuke only needs a best man. Everything else can be as extravagant as she wants, but there aren't going to be twenty people standing up there near the altar. That would just be ridiculous."

"Really?" Ino teases. "I wonder who's the lucky friend you'll choose to bear such heavy responsibilities to not outshine you at the party."

"Ino!" Sakura shakes a finger in her direction. "Don't think you'll get out of being my maid of honor even if everyone knows that you'll really have to tone it down so I don't get upstaged at my own wedding. I'm the matron for yours so you better be ready for it."

"You'll be my matron of honor, will you?" Ino's still teasing, but it's good to know that Sakura doesn't hold too much of a grudge for her lackluster answers regarding Kiba. "Hmm, I don't know about that, Sakura."

"Oh, you're impossible!" Sakura throws up her hands. "Just tell me what sort of flowers I should have in my bouquet."

"Ivy for wedded bliss." Ino considers it. "No roses of course, with how absolutely uninspired roses are this year and every year. There's no need to bore your guests to death. You're already wearing gardenias in your hair, so we can't have a repeat for the bouquet, besides, I'm not going into detail about the death of fashion when you try to do white on white." What would look good? What would mean the most?

Sasuke's traditional, so he'll know exactly what the flowers mean. It can't just be some stupid thing that looks pretty.

"You should go with either pink or yellow tulips. They won't clash much with the dress I'll be wearing, and they have excellent connotations." Tulips mean consuming love, a hope for many happy years to come. They're just what Sakura deserves. Not to mention, they'll be highly fashionable and inspired.

Ino's good at arranging flowers if she does say so herself.

Sakura hugs her. "You're the best, Ino."

Ino laughs. "I know I am." Her curiosity grows stronger though. "Who's Sasuke's best man? His elder brother?" The Uchiha brothers are close, but Itachi is a good five years older than Sasuke, and a confirmed bachelor who doesn't like parties at that. Not to mention how sick the poor man's been all this time. A man with consumption certainly shouldn't have to bear the strain of being best man.

It would be strange if Sasuke put his older brother on the spot like that. Anyone who knows Sasuke knows that he adores his only brother.

"No," Sakura waves a hand airily in the direction of the flowers. "I haven't the faintest clue. A friend Sasuke made at college. He's been surprisingly close-mouthed about it at the moment." Sakura leans in. "But I think it's because the man he's chosen is just shy. He's told me plenty about the best man already. Apparently, he's got a big heart and an abundance of cheer." Sakura giggles. "I can't imagine how Sasuke would have worked up the courage to be friends with someone who laughs constantly, but apparently his best friend from college is his exact opposite in temperament so…"

The two of them share a laugh at this. "Sasuke laugh more than once a day?" Ino gasps, tears sliding down her cheeks. "Oh, good lord, that's hard to imagine."

* * *

The wedding date on the first of May creeps up on them faster than they ever expected. So much so that she's doing Sakura's hair on the morning of while Mrs. Haruno gives last minute instructions to the ringbearer, one of Sasuke's younger cousins, and the flower girl, Sakura's little cousin Haruko when she finally realizes that her almost sister's getting married to the love of her life.

It's right at this moment that Ino remembers that she hasn't met the best man yet, and they are about to walk down the aisle together. Of course, this is her fault. She'd been so tired yesterday that she'd fallen asleep before the rehearsal dinner and hadn't made it to the venue in time to catch the best man who had to leave early due to work related reasons.

And of course, she'd been too flustered with her own rudeness to even ask who she was supposed to meet today.

"Who am I walking with?" She whispers to Sakura. "I didn't catch his name."

Sakura blinks. "Oh, you won't be able to miss him. He'll be standing in the aisle to the left."

For the first time, she gets a slightly funny feeling in her chest. Something's off about this whole affair. Something is just...off though she doesn't have the faintest clue.

Still, Sakura's hair and makeup is done now, and she quickly does her own before stepping out.

The church pews are packed with guests, relatives of Sasuke, friends of Sakura...Dr. Haruno steps in past her to speak to Sakura for a few minutes before the wedding ceremony is supposed to start.

Ino steps into the back of the church as the music starts, looking for the man that she apparently, can't miss.

"_Kiba?_"

There he is, hatless with his hair slicked back in a House of God, dressed in black — black suit, black tie, black pants, white shirt, silver tie pin, silver cufflinks.

He turns to look at her. "Why, Sweetheart. What're ya doin' here?"

"I'm the maid of honor." With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Ino accepts the next words. The man whose eyes have haunted her dreams this past half year is…

"Well, I'm the best man. Ain't that a coincidence." Kiba grins and offers her an arm. "We gotta walk now."

She sets a hand in the crook of his elbow, and they walk toward Sasuke at the end of the aisle.

She's learned in the recent months that Hana Inuzuka is a frequent guest at the Hyuga Residence, and that according to rumor and a bit of pressuring Hinata, that she'd met Kiba in middle school right after he had enrolled.

They are friends, nothing more than that, according to a heavily embarrassed Hinata.

Ino had had pity on the poor girl after that. She's allowed her friends no matter how unconventional or strange they might be, and Ino doesn't really have a right to know anything that went on between the two of them besides her own idle curiosity.

It's on the tip of her tongue to ask how he ever became the best man for _Sasuke Uchiha's _wedding given that he is a mobster and Sasuke is the police chief's younger son, but there's no time.

Besides, this is the best day of Sakura's life. Ino's not about to ruin the pictures by indulging in her own curiosity about the best man.

They take their positions, Kiba beside Sasuke who is twisting his hands together nervously, and Ino in the spot right behind where Sakura will soon be standing.

"Hey." Kiba begins as he touches Sasuke's arm. "This is the best day of your life. Get it together."

Sasuke shoots him an ungrateful look laced heavily with irony. "I'm going to pass out and all you can tell me is get it together?"

Kiba shrugs. "Try to look like you won't pass out, and it will pass over you like a dream."

Sasuke's ungrateful look strengthens into a glare. "You're no help at all."

Ino stifles a giggle. Kiba's still the same as ever. The only thing different is that he's dropped his lower district accent. Today, he sounds like the right amount of posh to fit right in. She wonders where he'd learned it.

In another moment, the processional starts playing, and she schools her face back into the appropriate amount of good cheer. First the flower girl, then the ring bearer, and then, at the very end, Sakura on Dr. Haruno's arm.

Ino cries. Her best friend does look beautiful.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today…"

* * *

For the second time in her life, Ino ends up dancing with Kiba. This time, it's at a wedding reception held in the grand ballroom of the town hall just down the street from the church. Granted, the maid of honor is supposed to dance with the best man, but she's sure that Sasuke would never have chosen a tango by himself.

"How did you get Sasuke to be so irreverent?" She asks as they move across the floor. "This isn't generally a opening dance."

Kiba laugh, his smile crinkling up the corners of his eyes. "I have my ways, Sweetheart." He pulls her close and dips her back, a hand firmly on the small of her back. "My sis calls me a charmer for a reason."

"You certainly must." Ino responds. "Otherwise I don't think the Police Chief would let a mobster into his son's wedding reception, much less take the spot of best man."

Kiba spins her around and pulls her back. "He will if the mobster saved his son's life."

"Oh?" Now that's interesting.

"A story for a different day." They cut across the floor. At this point, Dr. Haruno and Mrs. Uchiha have joined the dance, though the floor isn't crowded yet. "I see ya left your fiance at home." He comments, light and casual, but with a hint of scorn. _His accent's back. _It had stayed away while he was giving his speech.

"Shika's working." Kiba doesn't seem to like Shika. She could be quietly amused by it, just because Shika doesn't happen to like him either. Why should she be irritated by one if she isn't irritated by the other? "As a lawyer, he does that a lot."

"A lawyer, huh." Kiba nods along. He does dance divinely.

The music shifts to a more traditional waltz as more guests join the floor. The boundaries of propriety can only be pushed so far after all, especially at a wedding.

"What, you don't have any fondness for the law?" Ino asks. It's meant as a tease, and it rings true like one because he throws his head back and laughs, loud and boisterous. Behind him, the matrons start whispering.

_Oh, let them whisper. I haven't had this much fun in ages. Who cares if he's a mobster? _

"Oh, however didya guess?" His teeth flash in the light falling from the stain glass windows. "Sweetheart, that's such a marvelous thought."

Ino pretends to consider it. "Hmm. I haven't the faintest idea how I arrived at that conclusion."

He hums. "I've never given ya a reason for certain."

She can't help it, she laughs aloud. "Oooh, Kiba Inuzuka, you're a rascal."

"Course I am." He takes it with good grace and a flashing, golden smile. "Been a wolf since I was nothing more than a little lad."

Kiba graciously allows Dr. Haruno to cut in after the waltz, pleading fatigue for his feet.

"Ino, you look happier than this morning." The kindly doctor leads her through the box with spry steps that belie his middle age.

"I'm not sure what you mean." Ino murmurs politely. Yes, she's always happier after talking to Kiba. What of it? It's not going anywhere.

"I think you ought to call off your engagement with Shikamaru Nara." Dr. Haruno pauses for a moment, as if wondering to speak through the propriety. "You've been a good friend to Sakura, and I've always considered you to be my daughter in some small way. Let a nosy old man give you some advice?"

"Of course." She might not be as close with Dr. Haruno as she is with Papa or Uncle Shikaku, but he has always been a kindly man who had devoted his entire life to his family and his patients.

"A good marriage is built on happiness." The older man sighs. "I've never seen you as happy with Shikamaru as I saw you with that bootlegger today. I know your father cares a good deal to see you well settled, but Ino child, sometimes we will have to make our own way with what we think is right."

_Make my own way. _

_What is my own way? _

"But he's a criminal though, Dr. Haruno." That had been everyone's protest to Kiba, that, and her already long established engagement with Shika.

"I trust your judgement, child, and I trust Fugaku Uchiha's." The doctor lets her off the floor to rest her feet. "If you like him, he can't be such a bad young man. If he is Sasuke Uchiha's best man, then he must be exemplary in some way."

"It's time to cut the cake!" Ino doesn't know who says this, just that it ripples through the guests, and now everyone is ready to begin.

Sasuke sets his hand over Sakura's and they bring the knife down on the three-tiered wedding cake together.

In the midst of the festivities, Ino forgets about her own confusing thoughts for a moment. Until of course, Sakura tosses her bouquet over her shoulder.

Ino has been distracted by the cake, which is why she isn't paying attention to what's going on, but unfortunately the bouquet has no such considerations.

It nearly hits her in the face, but at the last possible second, a hand snaps out to catch it before it wrecks her makeup or lands in her cake. "Well," says a very familiar drawl. "I don't think I'm gettin' married any time soon, so…" Kiba sighs. "Ya hurt, Sweetheart?"

Mutely, she shakes her head.

"Oh my god." Sakura slaps a gloved hand over her mouth. "I'm so sorry, Ino!"

"You better." Ino whispers in her ear. "I nearly got my makeup ruined by you!"

Sakura blushes and sighs, and everything is alright again.

"You know." Sasuke comes over. "An unmarried woman was supposed to catch that." He's a little pink around his ears, either from the wines that Kiba had apparently smuggled over from France, or the embarrassment of the whole venture.

Kiba shrugs. "Was I supposed to let it smack a lady in the face?"

Sasuke doesn't have much to say to that. "Is this a sign that you're contemplating marriage?"

Kiba snorts irreverently. "I'm not the marrying type." No, he really doesn't seem like it. There is a restless, relentless energy to Kiba Inuzuka that doesn't seem to suit the image of a family man.

He glances down at the pink tulips. "Consuming love? Well it's a good thing ta wish for happy years ta come yeah?"

It is a good thing to wish for happiness.

_What is my own path? _

_The one that offers me the most happiness._

* * *

As predicted, the gossip about a mobster being the best man at an Uchiha wedding gets around and not just any Uchiha wedding, _the Uchiha wedding of the generation_. Shikamaru lets slip that he'd seen Kiba out with the Hyuga Heiress, and the gossip only gets worse.

In fact, Kiba and his sister's philanthropic actions might have even given him a veneer of respectability, at least until he does something else to scandalize the population.

It is for this reason that Papa has a hard time turning him away when he comes to call at Number Three Magnolia that summer.

"My daughter's engaged." Papa says when Kiba shows up again, for the second Saturday that July. He'd been by calling on Ino every week or so, making her laugh, bringing her little inconsequential presents — imported sweets, a strip of ribbon for her hair, a trinket he'd found in a pawn shop — he never brings her flowers so she never has any idea what he means by his presents.

Still, he presents them to her in such a way that it is hard for her to refuse them with any amount of grace.

He'd been right to say that he's charming, absolutely, completely, and in some ways, he's even won Papa over in the span of a few visits.

"I'm not here ta court your daughter." Kiba stands there, his hands in his pockets, leaning against the porch rail, his long legs crossed before him as he waits for Papa to step away from the door. "I'm jus' doin' a good deed." He jerks his head towards the car. "There's a garden out by the forest I thought Ino might like ta see."

At the moment, Kiba and Hana have a good reputation, and Papa can't very well make another scene on the front step.

Papa steps aside. "I'll let you ask Ino."

Clearly, he expects her to say no. However, Dr. Haruno's words are still echoing in her head. _I trust your judgement child. _

"Well," says Kiba as he fiddles with the brim of his panama. "Whaddya say?"

Ino smiles at him sweetly. "Why, if a gentleman's come to take me riding, how could I say no?"

She's rewarded with a brilliant smile. "Ah," he says. "Well, that's keen."

He helps her into the passenger side of his Model J and starts cranking the windows down. "It'll get mighty hot in here with the sun 'n all." He mutters. "We've still got a ways to go, but I'll drive fast 'n it'll be cooler with the windows down."

"I don't mind it." She honestly doesn't. What's a little sun when she's got her big straw hat and they're sitting inside the world's most beautiful car? "But you might just be addicted to driving fast."

"Oh, don't I know it, Sweetheart." Nothing she says to him really seems to be insulting. He takes her criticism and teasing in stride, or else with laughter. Not for the first time, she wonders if he'd ever get angry. She's certainly never seen him angry. The day they'd met he'd merely been annoyed, and that was enough to resort to violence.

"Are we really going to a garden?" She doesn't put it past him to drive them to some speakeasy that she's never seen before.

He shrugs as he spins the wheel first to one side and then to another as they pick up speed while weaving between the traffic on the road. "It's more like a meadow with a creek." He turns to her and grins. "I wanted ta take ya ta see the sunset there. It's pretty this time of year."

"Kiba," Her voice rises in pitch just a little. They're going so fast. "Keep your eyes on the road."

He turns back to glance at the slow moving car not two feet in front of them, swivels the wheel to the right and drives on, raising a cloud of dust behind them. The driver of the car they leave in the distance leans on his horn. "Don't worry so much, Sweetheart." He drawls as he leans forward onto the wheel. "I got this."

He'd nearly crashed them into the other car while he was looking at her, but it didn't seem to faze him.

They're far outside the city limits now, heading down a straight white road. If at all possible, Kiba steps on the accelerator even more until the panther's pur of the engine rises into a dull roar.

There's something exhilarating about going this fast. The landscape around them blurs like an oil painting.

Ino doesn't help herself. She laughs.

He slows down when they reach the edge of the forest and pulls the car off into a shaded stop invisible from the main road. "We'll have ta walk a bit until we get there." He opens the door for her and welcomes her out with a bow. Then he opens the back door and pulls out a picnic basket which he very gallantly decides to carry.

"Is it far?" She's wearing light sandals and a sundress today, having not anticipated going anywhere quite like this.

"Nah." Kiba leads the way down a small footpath. "It's less than a five minute walk."

Sure enough, the path widens out just a bit as the water comes into view up ahead. There's a cute little bridge over a stream that can easily be waded in the summertime and a clearing in the trees which shines down on the meadow. The stream cuts right through the center of the clearing, and the bridge is just at the edge of the meadow.

There's bluebells mixed with purple orchid and honeysuckle. The entire place is so pretty she almost imagines that they've been planted by fairies.

"It's beautiful." She whispers. They've come when the sun is just below the trees, though sunset hasn't come yet.

"So are you." He's dropped his lower district accent, but the most disconcerting are his words. He's never called her beautiful before.

She turns back to look at him, but all he's doing is opening the picnic basket on the bridge, and she has no idea if she's actually heard him properly or not.

_Did he even say something, or did I just mishear him? _She hasn't the courage to ask him.

She comes to sit next to him on the bridge, dipping her toes in the clear water. He offers her a little porcelain plate with a rose of molded gelatin. "We got here a bit early, but I thought ya might like something ta eat."

She accepts it, because it's really no different than the chocolates or hard candies he likes to bring her so casually when he visits the house. "Kiba," she asks after a moment of comfortable silence between them. "Why are you so nice to me?"

He shrugs and scoops a gelatin rose off of her plate. "I like ya." His eyes are fond when she looks up at him, though his smile's half-wry.

And suddenly she's guilty again. _What am I doing, leading him on like this? _Her engagement to Shika is still moving forward, and they're getting closer to September with every passing day. The estates have still not been disentangled from one another, and it seems increasingly less likely that they will be. She's resigned to it, or at least she likes to think that she is.

"I really am engaged already, you know." She sets her plate aside. They ought to get everything straight between them right now. "And I can't break the engagement without breaking my father's heart." And bankrupting herself, though she doesn't doubt Kiba has several plans for how to avoid that. Namely, if she ever— Oh, well that's not the point. He's not the marrying type. He's said that.

"I know." He leans back on the bridge, an arm tucked under his head like a pillow, the other thrown over his forehead like a shield against the sun. "But I like ya, so I'm gonna keep visiting 'til ya tell me ta go away."

Ino's at a loss for words. "I can't give you anything."

"Don't want ya ta give me a red dime." Kiba doesn't move from his position on the bridge, but his chest heaves like he's been running. "Ain't anything I need in this world, 'spect I never will need anything from anybody."

The sun slides lower.

She reaches out and takes his hand.

He sits up suddenly though he doesn't let go of her hand. "Thing I don't get is," he takes a pause, takes a breath, and lets it all out in a gusty sigh. "'S why that damned bluenose gets ta keep ya when he doesn't even like ya, and won't appreciate ya. He hadn't the foggiest idea of how precious a person's been handed to him 'cause he was born."

"Don't call him a bluenose, Kiba. I've known him since we were babies." It's a weak protest at best. He doesn't really mean the insults, doesn't mean anything except his own frustration.

She's still at a loss as to how a man like Kiba ever became a bootlegger and a criminal to begin with. He's got a good heart. He's kind to practically everyone he meets. He doesn't ask for handouts, doesn't offer other people disrespect unless they offer him disrespect first. In all other aspects, he's damn respectable. He's just a little more predisposed to violence than other men she's met and talks with a lower district accent most times, that's all.

He's got a few ideas about the rules of polite society, that's all.

"Ya can't tell me that he makes ya happy." He huffs. "Ya look miserable every time he steps into a room."

Ino doesn't know what to say to that, so she asks him a question instead. "Kiba, why are you a bootlegger?"

"Why do I run with the Wolves?" He hums as he stares out at the water that's been dyed a brilliant shade of gold by the setting sun. "When I was real small, we lived in the house in the Water Gardens with Pa." Yet he'd told her that he'd lived in the Pleat as a child. "My daddy was a banker, and he decked us all out with style, ya know. We were upper crust too a long time ago." He falls silent for a long time. "But the bank failed when I was four 'n a bit 'n some people came ta call at the house." He nods along to his own thoughts. "People lost a lotta money. The bank put the blame on Pa though he didn't do nothing wrong. Pa shot himself in the study 'fore I turned five so Sis 'n I didn't have ta see him go ta jail for trumped up charges, 'n the bank kicked Sis 'n I outta the house an' we didn't have a place to go 'sides the streets."

So that was how they'd fallen into life at the Pleat.

It's a story that hits close to her own heart. If Papa had stored his money in a failed bank, then maybe they'd have been the ones out on the street.

"Was Sis who raised me even though she wasn't more'n a kid herself." The air dims around them, and the fireflies start to come out. "The Wolves picked us up when I was 'bout seven or eight. They offered Sis a place in this world for me 'n for her, could go back to school 'n everything." He shrugs. "I was too little to remember what life was really like in the Water Gardens with Pa, but Sis always promised me that one day we'd never want for anythin' ever again." He sits there for a bit staring at his hands. "Now we don't. She's true ta her word."

They watch the water together as the sun slips down beneath the horizon, and Kiba walks her back to the car.

They've only just entered the city limits when the beam of headlights cuts through the space between them.

"Get down!" Kiba dives toward her, pushing her down beneath the seat. Something goes off with a muffled boom. A moment later the glass in the rear window shatters. The force of the impact rattles them both. Kiba mutters a curse more foul than she's heard from his mouth. "Damned bastards wrecking my ride. Ya want blood? I'll give ya blood."

He's got a hand on the steering wheel, a foot on the accelerator. "We needa get outta here now."

"What's wrong?" Ino asks, as she straightens.

"Keep your head down." He barks as they make a sharp right turn. The headlights follow them, even as he twists through the narrow streets though with more noise. They are no longer on their way back to the Bend. "There's someone out to get us."

_Out to get us. _

_That was a gunshot. _

What did she expect really? That dangerous things would stay safe for her?

Kiba reaches over towards his glove compartment and tugs it open so he can pull his pistol out. The side windows are still cranked down, but he barely pays attention to that. Instead he leans over the back of the seat and starts shooting at the headlights behind them. "Get offa my fuckin tail, you goddamned pillow bitin' cake eatin' cowards"

"Give me the gun." She almost surprises herself with how sure of herself she sounds.

"What?" Kiba fires the pistol a few more times for good measure even though he's already blown out the headlights. There's the squealing screech of tires and then the noises behind them fade to silence.

"You can't fire the gun and drive at the same time, and I don't know how to drive." She puts a hand on his back to try to tug him back into driving properly, but her hand comes away wet and sticky.

When she looks down at her palm it's slick and red. _Blood. _There's a hole she hadn't noticed before in his waistcoat, all the way into the flesh beneath. _He took a bullet when he dived for me._

"No need." He turns back around. "I got 'em." His pupils are blown wide, his eyes almost black.

"You got shot." This is almost an out of body experience. She has his blood on his hands; he's bleeding all over the leather seat of his car, and all he says is 'I got 'em.' "You got shot."

He glances down at her hands. "Ah," His breathing's shallower now. "Sorry 'bout that. Didn't mean ta have ya see me this way."

They make another turn. He sags against the steering wheel. "Ya said ya didn't know how ta drive?" He sounds faint.

"Let me look at your wound." She looks at the amount of blood he's lost already and makes a split second decision. She pulls the white handkerchief out of his chest pocket and balls it up small and tight enough to shove into the wound.

He hisses and goes stiff, but does nothing to stop her. "Stop being a macho man." She whispers. This close, she can see the beads of sweat sliding down his brow. He'd gotten shot. There's no telling where the bullet went, whether it hit an organ, whether he's going to… going to…

No.

She can think about that later.

She might not be a doctor or a nurse, but she's listened to Dr. Haruno's lectures on occasion, and any fool with half a brain would know that stopping the bleeding's better than not. "Why did you do such a fool thing?" He didn't need to dive in front of a bullet for her to rip her heart out like this. All he needed to say was that he wanted to spend the rest of his life waiting for her to sort out her business. "I like you, you dumb sap. Don't you dare die on me."

"You're too young ta die." He whispers. "And I like ya."

He's really in no position to drive. So Ino wrangles his dead weight into swapping positions somehow, until she's sitting the the driver's seat, and his head is in her lap. "Tell me how to move this thing. I'm getting you to a doctor."

"Gas pedal's on your right." He lifts a hand and pulls back a lever between the two front seats. "Mode's on drive now. The break's ta the left of that." His eyes are unfocused, but he musters up a wane smile for her. "Don't ya go wreckin' my ride now. Gotta...gotta get places in style."

"Kiba." She whispers as she slowly presses her foot down on the gas pedal. The car shudders forward, too fast, too sudden, but she has a death grip on the steering wheel, and Kiba bleeding out next to her so come hell or high water this death trap is going forward. "Kiba, don't you dare fall asleep on me." _Don't you dare die, you dumb mobster who crashed into my life and wrecked all of my plans. Don't you ever — fucking — dare die on me._

"Wasn't plannin' on it, Sweetheart." He huffs a laugh. "I know what gettin' shot involves bit better than ya think."

"You promise me that, Kiba Inuzuka. You won't fall asleep on me."

"I promise ya, Sweetheart."

* * *

She makes it to Dr. Haruno's. To Sakura's house — not Sakura's house anymore, she tries to tell herself. Sakura lives on West Mooreland Avenue now with Sasuke and their new house, but old habits die hard. It's still Sakura's house — just across the street from her own.

"Dr. Haruno?" She bangs on his back door, just because she doesn't dare let Papa see her like this and have a heart attack. "Dr. Haruno, please open up! Please!" She'd left Kiba in the front seat. He had fallen asleep on her, even though he promised her not to.

He has a pulse though. He has a pulse even though he's stained both of their handkerchiefs with blood. She hadn't dared to take anything out.

"Dr. Haruno—" The door opens inward, and she nearly falls over into the old man's arms.

"What's the matter, child?"

She must look a fright, all covered with blood, her hair in disarray. "It's Kiba." Now that she's here she can't get the words out of her mouth fast enough for her racing heart. Can't. Can't. Can't — She takes a breath to center herself. "He's been shot."

"Where is he?" Dr. Haruno moves into action immediately. She almost sobs from the relief of it all. She has someone else to turn to now. It's not all on her.

"C-car." She helps him drag Kiba out even as he rings for the butler to carry much of the weight the rest of the way into the house.

In proper lighting, his face is ghastly pale. Dr. Haruno lays him out on his side so he can cut the gray suit off of him. The vest and shirt get peeled back next.

She hides her face in her hands because she can't watch the rest. Absolutely, positively, cannot actually _see _the bullet that struck him, the one that should be buried in her somewhere, can't do it, can't— "My fault." She whispers to her hands. "My fault, I—" This is the second time Kiba's saved her from a sticky situation, even though he's pulled her into plenty more at other times.

He might have rubbed dirt onto her reputation, but she likes him, and he's done so much, and suddenly Ino finds that she doesn't care much about what the matrons say about her and her ways and what she chooses to do.

He might be a dumb sap mobster, but he's _her _dumb sap mobster, and damn it. He can't die. He can't, because he promised.

"You did a good job." Dr. Haruno comes to sit by her when he finally rewraps the wound in extra bandages and pulls it tight and ties it all together.

Kiba's breathing has evened, and there's a little more color in his cheeks though he's still ghastly pale.

"If the wound didn't get plugged early and if he didn't get to a doctor as soon as he did then he very well would have died."

"Will he live?" That's the only real question, isn't it? Will he live? Did she get him here on time? Will he still be Kiba — Kiba with his wide charming smiles, Kiba with little presents and good advice, Kiba who with three words peeled back all the layers of her heart until they were raw to the touch _I like ya — _Will he still be that man when he wakes up?

"He has a good chance to. The wound didn't hit any major organs. So after a period he should heal well enough." Dr. Haruno pats her hand. "It's a miracle, Ino."

It's a miracle. Ino's in the mood for miracles.

He has other scars, now that she's of a mind to notice. Perhaps that's why he still wears a three-piece even if it's blazing hot out. There's scars everywhere. New scars, strips of raised and twisted pink skin, ones a fair bit older faded to white, and ones that have resolved themselves to silvery lines.

He'd never stopped his cycle of violence. Never stopped committing crimes. No. He'd just put his nice face on for her and the rest of high society, and everyone had fallen over themselves to see his smile. He has a beautiful smile.

Ino knows very well that if he wasn't protecting her, then he wouldn't have gotten injured today. She doesn't want to know what happened to the other people that had wounded him before — what they had done to be able to wound him, there's no question that he wouldn't have let them live if they did draw his blood — or what happened to the car that he'd blown the headlights off of.

Perhaps the driver and the shooter were dead.

"Good." Ino says and surprises herself again with her own vindictiveness. "Good. I'm glad." _I'm glad they're dead, because I don't give two hoots about them, and I'd tear out my own heart for Kiba. _

Why does she have to be horrified about someone else dying when that was the only thing that'd kept both Kiba and her alive?

Ino rises to hold his hand. "Do you know how to contact Ms. Inuzuka?" Kiba's close to his sister, had all but said that she's the only family he has left, so leaving him here between life and death without his sister present seems _wrong. _

"I haven't the faintest clue." Dr. Haruno drags his hand over his face. "Despite being the philanthropist, the easiest way to contact her is still by post." It's only now that Ino remembers that it's well past dinner time, and the Doctor has been at work in the hospital all day.

_Think Ino. Who else would know that phone number that you need? I don't, Papa wouldn't, Dr. Haruno— Sakura. She could ask Sasuke. Sasuke has to know. He was Sasuke's best man. _

Best of all, she still knows how to contact the Uchihas. Sakura had wrote it all out in her little journal. "Sasuke would know, I'm sure." Ino pulls herself together. "Might I ring Sakura on your phone?" She smiles for the doctor, for this kindly old man who hadn't asked any questions of her when she was six and used up all the fine white sugar, and now when she is twenty and nearly pounded his door down one evening in hysterics about a mobster bleeding out in the backyard. "And if you need to retire, it's no problem, Dr. Haruno. I'll sit with him."

He nods and moves past her toward the stairs. "I'll take my rest then, Ino."

Ino flies over to the phone.

It's a man who picks up. "Uchiha Residence, may I ask who's speaking?"

"Ino Yamanaka. I need to speak to Sasuke or Sakura." Who would pick up the phone at this hour? She is half certain that...oh no, Sakura and Sasuke do not live alone. She'd forgotten. There's bound to be someone else in the house at this time of night.

"Ah," The man on the other end clears his throat. "My little brother and his wife are out. I believe they said they were going to see the new production of Turandot. You sound rather frantic, Miss Yamanaka. Is there something I could help you with?"

So it's Itachi Uchiha. Perhaps he'd know. She has to try. "I have to speak to Hana Inuzuka."

There's a small silence on the other end of the line. "Hana? Whatever for?" So he does know. He's referred to Ms. Inuzuka so casually. He has to help her. He just has to.

"It's about Kiba." She turns to look back at the young man who's still lying on the kitchen table. "He's— He's been shot."

There's a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. "Where is he?"

"Number Six Magnolia."

There's a click and the other end of the line goes dead.

Ino's left holding the phone, suddenly bereft of everything.

She turns around and sits down woodenly in the chair by Kiba's bedside.

And that is when she begins to cry.

* * *

"Cosmos." Papa shakes her awake what seems like moments later. "What happened?" She glances up blearily at him. Her head's pillowed on an arm. Her other hand is still holding Kiba's wrist. He still has a pulse that feels steady, though weak. His breathing's labored though, and she's distracted by that until Papa asks again. "I thought you were going to see a garden."

"We did go and see the garden." Was it really this afternoon? Was it really just a few hours ago when Kiba had laughed and smiled and brought her gelatin and cake? "It looked like it'd been planted by fairies."

"Mrs. Haruno hurried over to the house a few minutes ago, saying that you'd come in looking all a fright." Papa holds both of her shoulders. "Are you alright, Ino? Are you hurt?"

Ino shakes her head. "I'm fine." She'd driven a car today. She'd seen someone get shot today. She had _volunteered _to shoot someone today.

"Now, tell me what happened." Papa pulls a chair up next to her and pulls her close like she's only five years old again. He smooths down her loose hair. "Tell me all about it Cosmos. Don't leave anything out."

How could she have forgotten with all these years with Papa that he only ever wants the best for her? That he's concerned about her drinking not because of the Yamanaka reputation, but that it'll wreck her liver? That he wants to see her married to Shika not because of any amount of money, but because he can trust Shika with her life?

So very slowly, she tells Papa the story. How Kiba had taken her out to the forest, how he'd brought gelatin and cake, how they'd sat there for a long time, how they'd been ambushed on the way back into Konoha, how he'd taken a bullet for her, how she'd gotten them both back here.

She doesn't tell him that Kiba had told her about his past, doesn't tell him about those three words that still meant so much to her — _I like ya. _They seem too private to share, too new when he hasn't even woken up to confirm any of it.

"I see." Papa says after a long moment of silence stretching out between them when her story ends. "So he meant it when he said he would die for you."

"What?" She didn't know that Kiba had ever said anything of the sort.

"He visited me once in my office on Walnut Street right after Sakura's wedding." Papa continues carding his fingers through her tangled hair, as if that would help them now. "He asked me what he had to do to keep seeing you." He sighs. "I'm afraid I was rather short with him."

So that was how Kiba had gained permission to visit her at the house. She'd thought nothing of it, just chalked it up to his irresistible charm, but it seems not. It seems that he'd gone to farther lengths than that, even early on. If he visited Papa right after Sakura's wedding, then it was right after their second dance together.

He'd been willing to promise even then.

"I want to break off the engagement." Now more than ever, she doesn't want to marry Shikamaru. _Would I want to marry Kiba if I don't marry Shika? Would he even ask me to marry him? _For a brief moment, she remembers something he'd said at the reception. It'd been right after he caught the bouquet. _I'm not the marrying type. _

"For him?" Papa asks. "You'd throw away a lifetime of friendship for a common criminal?"

"He's not a common criminal." Kiba…perhaps if she didn't know him she'd think of him that way, but she does know him, and she cannot call him that. "He's saved my life twice now."

"He was the reason you were in danger the second time to begin with." Papa counters. "Shikamaru would never have put you in that situation."

No, of course Shika wouldn't. He would just insult her by inviting his fiancee to a meeting where he spent most of the time enjoying his girl's company. "Shika doesn't love me." She doesn't mean to say it, but it's true, and she doesn't regret it.

"What do you mean?" Papa pulls away for just a moment. "Shikamaru thinks the world of you." He's gotten her confused with some other blonde haired woman. _Temari Sabaku. _

_I will never be Shikamaru's girl from Suna, and so I will never hold his heart. _

"As a friend." Ino counters. "He thinks the world of me, but he doesn't love me besides like a sister." That statement had hurt her back when she was sixteen and still new to the ways of love and the world. It doesn't hurt her anymore.

"Now, Cosmos, I know that Shikamaru isn't dramatic or showy, but he does love you." Papa doesn't seem disappointed in her, just bone tired. "He's not like other men who would put on a big show or make large proclamations."

_Does he think that Kiba made so grandiose speech about it for me to want to break off an engagement? _All Kiba had said on the subject was three words. _I like ya. _

They echo in her mind still. She fears they always will.

"He didn't—"

The door slams open. "Kiba!"

The last time Ino had seen Ms. Hana Inuzuka, she'd been perfectly put together — impeccably dressed, makeup done, hair styled — and while she is still dressed well, she wears no makeup, and her dark hair is loose down her back.

"Kiba!" She dives across the kitchen for her brother's hand. "My God." She whispers, a hand over her mouth. "Kiba." Her eyes travel to the neatly bandaged wound and pauses there for a moment as she takes her brother's pulse.

She pulls herself together almost effortlessly a moment later. Ino couldn't have guessed her panic a moment before if she didn't see it happen herself. She looks like a woman who doesn't know the meaning of rattled.

"I presume you must be Mr. Inoichi Yamanaka?" She offers Papa a hand. "I'm Hana Inuzuka." Now without makeup, she's not a particularly pretty woman, but she is hard to look away from. Hana Inuzuka draws the eye like a live flame draws a moth. There's such a presence to her.

It seems that charm runs in the family.

Papa rises and bows politely over her hand. "A pleasure to meet you." He doesn't mean it.

Hana Inuzuka is dressed in red, in something like the dress Kiba had first lent her. He'd been right when he said that it was his sister's dress. Red is Ms. Inuzuka's color. It only enhances the soul in her dark eyes.

Two other men hurry into the kitchen. One of them, Ino recognizes as Itachi Uchiha. The man has consumption. He shouldn't be out and about, but apparently, the Inuzuka siblings are more entrenched in Konoha's high society that she first imagined if Itachi is willing to step out for Ms. Inuzuka's brother at a moment's notice even at the expense of his own health.

Itachi leans against the opposite wall and covers his mouth with his hand as he coughs from the exertion. There's a red bloom on his cheeks that speaks of another bout of illness.

The other man is older, though by the lack of wrinkles on his face only pushing thirty or so with premature silver hair and a scar over his left eye. He doesn't have facial tattoos.

Ino doesn't know him, though he'd stepped out with Ms. Inuzuka that night at the charity ball, so they must be close as well.

Hana Inuzuka smiles, razor sharp, her eyes like frozen earth. "I'll be taking my little brother now. Thank you for being so concerned as to sit with him." Her words say one thing, and her tone says another. She turns to Ino with a small, soft smile though. "You're welcome to come visit him any time you'd like, Miss Ino."

"Queenie." The silver-haired man coughs into his hand. "She'll need her father's permission to go anywhere."

Ms. Inuzuka turns to him. "But Kakashi, why would she ever? She's a grown woman, isn't she?"

She is, she supposes. As far she knows, Ino is old enough to make her own decisions, though rarely does she flout Papa's house rules because he always looks so disappointed afterward. She can bear most anything in this world but Papa's disappointment.

"It's what upper class folks do, Boss." Another man comes in around the corner. This one, Ino recognizes as Shin, the man who'd let them into the mansion in the Water Gardens. "They lock up their women 'cause nobody trusts the fair sex ta make a damned decision their entire lives. They're jus' 'round ta look pretty." He'd called Hana Inuzuka his boss. _No, it can't be can it? _

_The Boss of the Wolves is a woman? _She should have expected it after it came out that the philanthropist was a woman. What other job would ever offer a woman enough money to burn like Ms. Inuzuka had always done for the poor and needy?

Ino already knew that they didn't inherit their wealth, and there wasn't a legal job for a woman that would pay that much in a lifetime, much less just a few months. Who else could Hana Inuzuka be but the Boss of the Wolves? It doesn't mean it doesn't surprise her though.

_I guess I'd always thought that she got by because her little brother's a big shot in the mob. _As it turns out, it's the other way around.

Ah, no wonder the law couldn't do anything to Kiba. He's the Boss's younger brother. No wonder he went around without a care in the world.

Between Shin and Kakashi, they lift Kiba onto the stretcher Shin brought in and carry him out.

"How barbaric." Hana Inuzuka turns back to Papa. "I do hope you're not one of those men, Mr. Yamanaka." And only now does Ino realize Ms. Inuzuka's brilliance. _She did this purposefully to tie Papa's hands and give me my freedom_. She knows exactly what standards young ladies are held to. She'd been a young lady herself once upon a time if Kiba got his facts right.

And in the face of her words, all Papa can do is grit his teeth and say "Of course not, Ms. Inuzuka."

Ino is left in awe of how easily the older woman had handled the whole affair.

She'd run rings around Papa like she'd merely sent a proper invitation for tea, but she'd done the exact opposite of that. Her invitation extended to Ino directly is entirely improper, not at all polite and incredibly unconventional. Papa still had to accept it anyway.

Forget Kiba being charming, his sister is downright terrifying.

Ino woodenly follows Kiba out across the back lawn. She doesn't want to say goodbye to him, but undoubtedly, Dr. Haruno expects him gone when he gets up in the morning and his sister will want him home with their own doctors and a boatload of caretakers.

Ms. Inuzuka takes in the ruined rear windows of the Model J and sighs. "Ah, that's another one of these that Kiba's wrecked." With a dainty shrug, "Ah well, we can always get him a new car and sell this one for scrap metal." She pops open the driver's seat door.

"Would you like me to go with you, Queenie?" Kakashi asks from her right side. "It might still not be safe to go alone." He glances into the car at the old blood crusting on the seats and wrinkles his nose. "Or I could drive."

"Oh just get in the car." Ms. Inuzuka climbs into the driver's seat without pausing for the blood. "If you're so worried about me, you can take shotgun."

Kakashi shrugs and climbs into the passenger seat. "Might as well go with you."

And then they are gone, all five of them.

* * *

**A.N. **Thank you so much everyone for the positive feedback I got for this crazy niche idea. (It seems like I'm always having niche ideas.) I am glad to report that I have up to Ch 4 of this story completely written, all the chapters about this length, so we will see updates on at least the next two Thursdays as scheduled!

There's lots more story ground to cover, and so much more fun to have with everything!

Thank you to everyone who reviewed, favorited and followed. You all are so amazing and have really gotten me back into the groove of writing this story.

~Tavina


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

* * *

"So smoke 'em if you got 'em 'cause it's going down. All I ever wanted was you. I'll never get to heaven 'cause I don't know how."

— LP, "_Lost on You" _

* * *

Her conversation with Papa regarding her engagement to Shika isn't done, but she sleeps 'til noon the day after to avoid it and hurries to call car to visit Kiba in the Water Gardens soon after.

Papa always checks his hothouses on weekdays, so she has a bit of time, and today is no different.

Sai's the one who brings the car around for her. "Mr. Inoichi said I wasn't supposed to take you anywhere near the Water Gardens today." So Papa had found a way around Ms. Inuzuka's trap. He could just tell Sai not to take her in that direection.

Ino squares her shoulders. She's not a child any longer, and she'll find her own way. "If that's the case, I'll take the car by myself and crash it on the bridge." She knows the parts of a car now, even if she's still afraid that she's going to crash the death trap of a thing.

Sai pales rapidly. "Please don't do that, Miss Ino. I'll take you. It'll be no trouble."

She'd feel guilty about it later when Papa inevitably disciplines him but not her for this stunt — Papa has been lenient in all the ways he possibly could throughout her life and this will only be another way that he tries to shield her from all harm — but that is not right now.

Right now she has a man to see and talk to.

"Well then, by all means." She curtsies for Sai. "Lead the way to the Water Gardens."

Sai heaves a long, resigned breath. "You should be really thankful that you're very pretty, Miss. Ino. Other people don't like it when pretty people cry."

"I always am." Ino strides past him toward the car. She'll need some luck directing him when they actually get to the Water Gardens. She still half remembers the streets she and Kiba had taken that night over a year ago, but the memories are blurred with rain and time.

Hopefully she'll arrive at the house in good time.

"Miss Ino?" Sai asks when they are well on their way. "Is Mr. Inuzuka your beau?"

Ino nearly chokes on air. "Whatever gave you that impression?" _I like ya. _Had three words really disturbed her equilibrium so much?

"He's always coming around to the house these days, and then he took you out and didn't bring you back. Mr. Inoichi had to go get you. It was late at night too. And now you're going to visit him, even if Mr. Inoichi wouldn't like it if he knew." Sai blinks at her innocently from the front. "Did I say something wrong?"

She hides her face in her hands. Sai, for lack of better definition, has never been blessed with social graces, cues, or anything bordering on tact. Thus, he really doesn't know if he's implied anything wrong. It's not his fault.

"No, _Mr. _Inuzuka is not my beau." Oh, but she wishes he was. That would make all of this so much easier, even if it was all wishful thinking. Papa would never agree to betroth her to a mobster, and the heiress of the Yamanaka fortune would never be able to marry a man whose sister ran an underground liquor business.

That doesn't stop her wishing.

"Did he throw you over then? He didn't seem like the type." Sai ponders.

Ino wonders what had ever possessed Papa to hire him to begin with. _It was probably a soft heart. _Papa has a soft heart, and everybody in the house knew it, from the cook to the maid to the butler to the chauffeur to his own daughter. Everybody knew it except himself. Papa likes to think that he is a stern disciplinarian, but that's just not true or else Ino would be married to Shika already without a word in edgewise.

"No, Sai." Ino fights hard to keep the blush off of her cheeks. "We were never in a relationship. Please get that out of your head right now."

Sai frowns, but keeps his eyes on the road. "That's a pity. You would look even more beautiful next to him." She'd long known that Sai had an eye for color, and Papa had funded a bit of his art studies, but she didn't know that he was so lacking socially that he would equate beauty with love.

"That's one of the stranger things I've heard today." But they are here, and she is too impatient to wait for Sai's reply. Instead, she hastily rolls the window down so she can talk to Shin. "Ms. Inuzuka said that I could come to visit Kiba."

The gate guard looks her over. "The car stays in the street."

"Alright." Ino steps out of the car, completely ignores Sai's protests, and follows after the woman who'd beckoned in her direction through the gate and down the lane. The trees are magnolia trees, soaring high above her head. The flower beds she'd seen a year ago are planted with a profusion of violets, bluebells, and forget-me-nots. Their significance is not lost on her. _Honesty, humility, love and remembrance._

"You are the Young Wolf's Miss Ino." It's not really a question.

She supposes that the Young Wolf is Kiba, and she doesn't really know how to respond. _Does everyone here think that I'm his girl? _"I'm Ino Yamanaka, yes. And you are?"

The woman she's walking with — she doesn't want to think is a maid, because there's a burn scar stretching down half of her face and the red triangle of the Wolves is prominent on her other cheek — glances over at her once, brown eyes searching. Whatever she's looking for, Ino hopes she finds it. "I'm Kotsuzui. Kotsuzui Inuzuka."

"You're related to Kiba?"

Ms. Kotsuzui shrugs. "He is the adoptive son of my uncle, so perhaps. We are not a family of blood, but pack is pack."

They turn down another hallway, and the silver-haired man whom Hana had called Kakashi pushes himself off of the wall. "I'll take it from here, Kotsu."

"Just because you're Queenie's man doesn't mean ya can order me 'round." Kotsuzui crosses her arms over her chest. So Kakashi is Ms. Inuzuka's beau.

Kakashi shrugs, lean muscles flexing under his white shirt. "You lookin' to start a fight? I've got my orders."

"No." Kotsuzui takes a step back. "Orders are orders, and I'm gonna believe Queenie."

Kakashi sets off down the hall without really looking to see if Ino follows. Somehow, she feels like she's being passed around like a piece of baggage as they wander through this maze of a house.

"So," The older man begins. "Heard you were engaged already. Whatcha doing down here slumming it with us?" _What are you doing playing around with Queenie's little brother? _Goes unsaid but certainly not unheard.

"I don't want to marry my fiance." Ino straightens her shoulders and lifts her chin. "We've been engaged since we were babies, and we never had a choice about it."

"Are you making one right now?" Kakashi asks as they pause before the door. "Or are you just looking to run away from a man you don't love into some sort of glamorous dangerous lifestyle with a charming young man who doesn't know how to guard his heart?"

She supposes that if Kakashi is really Ms. Inuzuka's man then he'd see Kiba as something of a little brother. She stares him in the eye. "If I was looking for glamor, I don't think I'd be here, seeing as I nearly died yesterday." She stalks past him through the door with her head held high. "I'm here for Kiba."

"Aw, Sweetheart." Drawls a very familiar voice, though it's weaker than she remembers it. "I'm touched, I am, that ya can ta visit me in the Wolf's Den."

"Kiba!" She has to resist the urge to fling herself across the room at him, and even so she still makes it across the space in far too little time. "You're awake."

He smiles crookedly. "And all doped up on morphin too. I don't feel a damned thing right now, Sweetheart."

She's so relieved she could cry. He's exactly the same as last afternoon. Exactly the same as the first time they met.

Taking a bullet for her hasn't made him reconsider.

"Whatcha cryin' for?" He fumbles around until he finds what he's looking for and then promptly offers her a handkerchief.

She takes it and blows her nose without caring about the impropriety of it all. "I'm just, just so _happy._" She doesn't know why she'd cry if she is happy, but she's happy and she's crying and she can't stop the tears from coming. "You're _alive._"

He laughs and then winces. "'Course I am, Sweetheart. Ya can't kill me with a bullet."

"Can't kill you?" Her voice jumps an octave in the space of three words. "Dr. Haruno said you nearly died yesterday."

He'd said they'd seen miracles happen.

"Oh Sweetheart," Kiba doesn't sound the least bit sorry. "I told ya, I know a lot more 'bout gunshots than ya." He has the decency to look serious at least. "But yeah, I'm like an old bad penny. I always keep comin' back."

"You got something right." Ino dabs at her eyes with his handkerchief. "I can't seem to lose you."

"'Sides." He continues, pretending to be nonchalant as he looks her straight in the eye. "I didn't hear ya say ya like me yet."

"The nerve!" Ino leaps to her feet and paces the length of his bed. "You know very well that I'm engaged to be married and—"

"Could elope with me." He shrugs when she turns to gape at him. "It's jus' 'bout the money isn't it? Well, I've got plenty of money, so ya wouldn't have to worry if ya eloped with me."

"But Shika would be destitute." She has no desire to leave her friend in such dire straits either. What sort of friend would she be?

"Oh, it's 'bout _Shika_ isn't it." His face takes on a mulish look of indifference. "Why'd ya care so much about damned Shikamaru Nara? He don't bore ya ta death?"

No. Kiba doesn't really care about the people surrounding her. He just wants— What does he want? He's already said before that he wasn't the marrying type. What does he want from her?

"Well," Ino crosses her arms over her chest. "Why do you want me?"

"'Cause I like ya." It's those words again, but she refuses _refuses _to be swayed by pretty words. She's been batting away pretty words from every strange man she's met all her life.

"_Why_ do you like me?"

Kiba blinks. "I gotta have a reason? I met ya. I like ya. That ain't a good reason?"

He hadn't even ever said she was pretty. He hasn't even the most basic of reasons. _He doesn't have a reason? _For the second time in her life, her heart shatters to pieces.

"I can't believe you." There's something ugly inside her skin that she can barely contain. It's like any further, and she'd just explode. "All this time! All this time you were just playing a game because it suited you!" Did he wait around and watch to see if she would fall for it? If she would just drop everything in her life like some sort of dumb Dora and run off into his arms until the moment he pulls the carpet out from her and screams 'gotcha' in her face? "I never want to see you again, Kiba Inuzuka." How many other young ladies has he charmed like this? She can't have been the only one.

He's far too charming, far too smooth for this to have been the first time he played some poor soul like a fiddle.

_Papa was right. Papa was right. He's a scoundrel._

"Oi!"

She stomps out of his room with far too much force.

"Hey, Ino!"

She slams the door behind her and stands there, chest heaving. She just has to make it to the door. Just to the front door and down to the gate. Sai's there, waiting for her so she can go home.

"Miss Ino?" Sai asks when she gets back to the automobile. "Miss Ino, is Mr. Inuzuka alright?"

"Oh, he's dandy." Ino snaps. "Just dandy."

"You're crying, Miss Ino." They don't go anywhere. Sai doesn't even bother to step on the gas.

"I threw him over." Ino buries her face in her hands. "We're finished." Finished. It's such a final sort of word. Finished.

"But I thought he wasn't your beau?" Sai blinks at her in the rearview, all confused and strange.

"Just drive, Sai." Suddenly, all she is is tired. "Just drive. I want to go home."

* * *

Kiba sends her four letters that she doesn't read in as many days. By the time she's ripping up the fifth one in the grate and setting it on fire without even opening it a week later, she's come to a decision.

She rings Shika that afternoon. "Don't call off the marriage." _It's unfair to Shika. _Her mind whispers. _You shouldn't stand in the way of his happiness even if you can't find any yourself. _

_What about me? _Her heart screams. _What about my happiness? Where can I go— _

Her heart's a weak thing. It wants to go back to those golden days with Kiba in the Model J, when they drove down the white road, and just keep driving, never stopping as though summer and youth and crushes could go on forever.

Her heart's a stupid thing, she's always know that.

She's always know that.

"It didn't seem like we could before the deadline anyway." Shikamaru sighs. "If only I was born a year younger than you." He sounds miserable. "I'm sorry Ino."

"Don't be sorry." Ino raises her chin. "It's what I was born for." She was born to look beautiful on the outside and be falling apart on the inside, like some sort of frail doll.

Born to be a hothouse flower, the most beautiful woman in the Bend's high society since her mother. Born to be a society wife, a hostess for every occasion, to go on smiling and looking pretty at all the season's events.

She shouldn't have thought that a path outside of her destiny existed.

"Ino?" Shika sounds confused, because this is most definitely not what she's spent the past year proving. No matter. "Is something the matter?"

It will be the rest of her life. She'll have time to make it up to him for embarrassing him so by dancing with Kiba and letting a mobster call at her house.

In ten years, no one will remember, and no one will care. Kiba Inuzuka will have vanished into the sands of time.

"Everything's fine." She laughs. "I've just woken up again is all. Everything hasn't been so fine in well over a year, Shika." She twirls a curl around her finger — she'd recently gotten her hair curled, anything to remove the stain of who she used to be, anything.

Anything except the red dress at the back of her closet that she cannot seem to return.

"If you're certain." Shika sighs, long and soft. "If there's something wrong, you'd tell me, wouldn't you, Ino?"

She giggles. "What could possibly be wrong, Shika? I'll be the most beautiful bride in this century."

Now she'll only have to talk it over with Sakura. Having a wedding in just two months — having a wedding in the fall, well that will take planning and time. That will take work, and effort, and money, but it's not as if Papa is a pauper who lacks the money to send her off...no. She'll be the most beautiful bride in a century, and they'll be talking about her wedding for years to come.

But she already knows that there's one wedding invitation she has to send.

There's a twist of cruel vindication winding around her heart. _Let him see I don't belong to him and his flowery words. Let him see I didn't fall for his tricks._

_I was never his, and I never will be. _

Revenge ought to taste sweet, but somehow, even the thought of it is enough to turn her stomach. She wants to invite Kiba to her wedding so he'll know that he'll never have her. She isn't used to being cruel.

"Miss Ino?" The maid hurries in with a card. "Mr. Inuzuka's here to see you."

"Tell him I'm not in." Ino waves the girl away. "I'm out in the greenhouses choosing my wedding bouquet." It's what she'll be doing in a few hours anyway.

She doesn't feel guilty for the lie, but it settles the bottom of her stomach like unsettled porridge.

Was it just a week ago — He'd gotten shot just a week ago. What's he doing out of bed?

She shakes the thought away. His wounds must not be serious then. It must have been — must have been just another fabrication. _Just another fabrication,_ she tells her crying heart. _It wasn't real. _

_None of it was real._

"Yes of course, Miss Ino." The girl curtsies and backs away.

It's final then, though it won't truly be final until the wedding. They're finished.

* * *

The rest of July and the month of August passes her by on winged feet, until she sits in front of her dressing room mirror as Sakura does her hair. Cousin Fu's younger sister is the flower girl. One of Shikamaru's cousins is the ringbearer.

Sakura is her matron of honor, and of course, dear old dependable Chouji is Shikamaru's best man.

Papa greets her at the doors of the church, though there's a worried look in his blue-gray eyes. "You look so thin, Cosmos." He whispers. "I do hope you're sleeping and eating well."

Ino's ate like a bird and slept fitfully these past few months. In her dreams, she is afraid that there'll come the moment when the priest asks those who object to speak now or forever hold their peace, and Kiba will stand up and do what he does best — dazzle.

She is afraid of what she will do in response to that.

Will she go back to him, now that she's finally scrubbed him from her life and her skin and her mind? She has not cleansed the last traces of him from her heart, she knows. He has made himself at home there, and she does not think that she will ever be free of that. Not this year, not in two months, not in a decade, not in a lifetime. Had she really met him just a little over a year ago? It seems like lifetimes.

"I'm just too excited, Papa." She is excited to have this over with. Happy to finally be free, at least in name. Not at heart. Never at heart.

The wedding march starts, and there's no more time to speak. She sets her hand on Papa's arm, and they walk down the aisle.

The rest of the walk passes in a blur. She doesn't know if Kiba had bothered to come.

"I take thee—"

"I take thee—" Shika's face, she knows as well as her own. There's resignation in his eyes. She cannot say that it does not cut her.

"To have and to hold—"

"To have and to hold—" Ino puts her smile on. What is she doing really? _Following the prescription of fate. _

"For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health—"

"For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health—" Out of the corner of her eye, she spies a hint of red. She does not turn her head to look.

"Till death do us part."

"Till death do us part."

The priest steps forward and winds a ribbon about their clasped hands. She does not truly hear the next line, though she knows it by heart. No, her eye has been caught by the figure standing in the back. "...speak now or forever hold your peace."

The crowd holds its breath as if waiting for a now familiar lower district drawl, but Kiba says nothing. Nothing. He has never held this roaring silence before. Everything about Kiba Inuzuka is loud and boisterous, but today he holds all the silence of stone. Ino is distinctly unnerved.

He's dressed in red. Absolutely inappropriate for a wedding, but he looks good in it. So good Ino almost forgets that it's vital she doesn't stare too long. Red suit, red vest, red pants, red velvet spats, black shoes, black shirt, red tie, gold cufflinks...a black top hat, and tucked into the red band a single red dahlia. _Betrayal. Dishonesty. _

Her papa is a floral magnate. He knows she would recognize exactly what he's wearing.

Somehow, that cuts the floor out from under her more precisely than if he'd voiced an objection.

She raises her chin just a bit. _Who betrayed who? _

_It wasn't me who betrayed you._

* * *

As the bride, she opens the first dance with Shikamaru. There are only waltzes planned for the night, so there shouldn't be any scandals. She just has to stay away from the man in red. It's easy enough, given that he doesn't look like he's about to saunter over any time soon.

"You look pale, Ino." Shika sighs. "Are you sure you don't want to sit down?"

She feels faint, but she doesn't want to sit down. She wants to dance all night. _Why doesn't he know that?_ "I'm fine." She smiles. "I've never been better."

His lips flatten to a thin line, but he does not press further.

Sometimes she wishes that he'd push. Sometimes, but tonight it rather suits her purposes. Tonight she can dance forever.

Or she would if she could forget the man in red dancing with Hinata Hyuga. They are laughing, bright and beautiful… But no — it's over, so she puts it from her mind.

"You're still planning the wedding right, 'nata?" Kiba and the Hyuga Heiress spin past Ino and Shikamaru, and all Ino wants to do is scream. They make a beautiful picture, a dashing young man in red, and the girl in his arms in a lilac evening dress.

"Of course," Hinata smiles, genuine joy in her eyes. "Though Hanabi wants me to wear lavender instead of white."

Kiba chuckles. "I wouldn't put it past her, but 'nata, ya look absolutely smokin'" And then they are too far away to hear.

_He never told me I was beautiful._

"I shouldn't have let you do this." When she turns back to Shika, he is looking at her with resigned dark eyes. "You didn't do this because you cared about your destiny. You did this because you wanted to hurt Kiba Inuzuka."

And it is always Shika who knows her well. "Of course not." Ino smiles. "I'm doing this to make Papa happy." Shika had spoken the truth though. She's doing this so she can hurt the lying skunk in red. He hadn't even the decency to look hurt over the whole affair, so of course she isn't going to be happy.

For someone who had tried so hard to win her back, he hasn't done a thing since she had the maids turn him away at the door. He hadn't sent her letters begging her. He hadn't shown up at Number Three Magnolia. He hadn't done anything except show up at her wedding and dance with every unwed young woman in the room, laughing and charming his way through them all.

Maybe it was his heartbroken face she wanted, so she could — Could what? _Laugh in his face._

And then softer still. _Forgive him._

"If that's how you want to think of it." Shika shrugs. "You didn't leave me much of a choice in the matter, Ino." He sighs. "I hope you realize that not much will change between us."

She hadn't expected anything to and says so. "I'm not doing this for your love, Shika."

Their dance ends, and she's passed off to her papa. "Cosmos?" Papa asks. "What were you and Shikamaru talking about so seriously?"

"The down payments on a new set of warehouses." She and Shika had exchanged letters on the matter. Papa and Uncle Shikaku had talked over new business expansions, often, and given that she's the inheritor of the Yamanaka floral business, it's up to her to talk things over with Shika now. "We were thinking about expanding further this year since the hothouse blooms have been doing well."

The smile Papa graces her with next is rueful. "Such a heavy topic for a wedding dance, my little blossom." It has been a long time since Papa brought out that nickname. Most days Papa prefers to call her Cosmos, to speak of joy in love and life, but on her wedding day she is just his little girl, and he is giving her away.

He is having such a hard time giving her away.

He is having such a hard time, even though he was the one who wanted her to marry Shika to begin with.

She smiles genuinely for the first time all day. "No, Papa. You shouldn't worry so over me."

"I'm glad you can say so, Cosmos." Papa spins her around the floor for what might be the last time tonight. "I've only ever wanted to see you safe."

"I know." Ino laughs. "I know, Papa. Don't worry so."

She spins past the white tables, and there, among the gathered throng of men in black, is a flash of eye catching red, and golden eyes.

_It's time to cut the cake._ Ino shakes the thought of a crooked smile and a lifetime of golden afternoons away.

Later that afternoon she throws her bouquet over her shoulder, and it lands in the hands of a blushing Hinata Hyuga. No one is surprised in the least, though little Hanabi Hyuga giggles uproariously behind her hands at her sister. It is unusual to see the Hyuga sisters so unrestrained, so _free_, but it is a wedding, and they are most likely happy as well, seeing as the engagement between Hinata and Senator Namikaze's son has been widely acknowledged.

Perhaps Mr. Hyuga is loosening his leash on his daughters.

Kiba lifts the laughing little girl onto his shoulder, and the littlest Hyuga balances there dainty and doll-like as she whispers furiously in his ear. He laugh good-naturedly at something she says, and she goes bright pink. The two of them disappear into the crowd.

_He never liked you, _an insidious voice whispers. _Why else would he looks so joyous?_

By the time she slides into the black limousine with Shika who was still picking rice grains out of his hair, she no longer feels like going on a honeymoon.

They had talked over going somewhere, if only because they couldn't not go anywhere. It just wasn't done.

No. Here is Uncle Shikaku who pats Shikamaru on the back with a bright smile. Here is Aunt Yoshino pulling her into a tight hug. "Oh, I'll miss you child, but you'll be home soon."

Here they are, surrounded by their family and friends, a picture perfect wedding.

Their car pulls away from the church she'd known since her childhood, from Papa and Sakura and all the people she'd always known, and not two miles down the road, she bursts into tears.

"I told you, you'd regret this." Shikamaru offers her a handkerchief and a wry laugh. "Oh, Ino. You know I wouldn't have said no if you wanted to do this, but I would never make you happy."

"Why didn't you tell me I was being stupid?" All she can see now are the long spread of years before her, playing perfect society wife opposite her best childhood friend's exacting lawyer, and she knows it is not the life that she wants despite it being the life she was born to lead.

She doesn't know what she wants exactly. _What, you want to be a mobster's wife? You want to know that your husband will go out someday and not come back? You want to wait for people to shoot you for being on his arm? _

Maybe she'd run away because she was a coward.

_He didn't give me a reason why he liked me. _

_Did he need a reason?_

_I never told him that I liked him, and I like him for very little reason._

"I did tell you." Shika sighs. "I told you several times. But granted, this mess is my fault as well. I shouldn't have fallen in love with Temari, but that's happened. We made the bad decision to try and cover it up, and now we're stuck where we are."

That's true. Far more true than she ever wanted it to be.

She got married today. Papa gave her away.

It is a rather final state to be, given that she is no longer Ino Yamanaka, but Ino Nara now.

Why did she stage this wedding when she didn't even want to get married? Is she really such a foolish child? She'd put the rest of her life on a set path just because she was angry and hurt.

_What's done is done. _She squares her shoulders and dabs her eyes. "It's time to go isn't it?"

"It is."

They are going down to a resort at the shore, and they plan to stay the week before Shika has to come back for work. She'll have time to figure out what she wants to do.

She has a week at the shore which she's always loved. She has time to figure out what she wants to do with the rest of her life.

* * *

The week ends, and they go home to the new house that Shika bought on Elm Street, not two streets away from the circle where they'd grown up.

It's outfitted with all new furniture, all new servants, everything is new, but it confuses her more than it excites her.

She misses the back garden with its profusion of flowers. Here the garden is bare.

She misses being able to run down to Papa's study in her socks. Here she has to dress and call the car before she can go back to her childhood home.

She misses the porch stoop trailing with the thick scent of honeysuckle in the summer. She misses the long sunroom where Kiba had once gifted her with a purple ribbon for her hair. She misses the scent of flowers in every room, cutting stems for the centerpiece for dinner, and sliding down the bannister of the wide front staircase.

She even misses Sai with his perpetual inability to follow social graces. But she tells herself that she is not unhappy here. She just has to decorate the garden by ordering flowers from the hothouses, order fresh flowers from the shop and put vases in all the rooms.

She just has to put some work into it, that's all.

Of course, that's how she stops paying any attention to Shika besides to go to his social events and to host a few parties where she absolutely glows with the happiness of the newly married.

Of course, that's how the activities of her husband and a certain Ms. Sabuku blindside her.

She'd been holding tulips for the vase in their bedroom. She'd been out all day inspecting the hothouses outside of the city.

Perhaps Shika hadn't expected her back until later that evening as is her recent habit because he hadn't even bothered to lock the door.

The tulips slide to the floor, forgotten.

She finds them in bed.

She finds them in her bed, and she'd known Shika would never love her more than a dear friend, but this is an _insult. _

She's been the Yamanaka Heiress ever since she was born. She'd never been so insulted in her life.

"Ino—"

She turns and flees down the stairs. There are some things you don't want to know about your life. There are some images you cannot exactly unsee.

"Ino, wait!"

_What was I thinking? _

She doesn't want to think. She doesn't want to remember.

So of course she ends up in a speakeasy. It's simple enough. Enough shots and she won't even remember which way is up or her own name, much less whatever she'd just seen.

"Ino?" Even her pounding headache can't erase the surprise in that lower district drawl. She raises her head to look blearily into golden eyes. "So it _is_ ya." He slides into the seat beside her at the bar. "Why do I always meet ya when you're dead drunk at a drum?"

"Why are you here?" She doesn't want him to see her like this. He's seen her drunk over Shika once already, though he likely doesn't know it. To let him see her like this a second time...she'll worry about it when the floor stops swaying.

"Sweetheart," he sighs. "I own this joint."

It is marginally nicer than the speakeasy they met in. It's got new electric lights and a decent band and clean floors and looks pleasant enough.

She regrets coming here. "I'll remember that when I'm deciding whether or not to come in next time." She giggles and downs another shot. The booze is better here too. "I need another drink."

The bartender pretends not to hear her.

"I said I want another drink." She's close to sober right now. She needs to be more drunk.

"I think it's time for ya ta go home, Mrs. Nara." Kiba's not exactly looking her in the eye. "I'll take ya back."

They are halfway to his car — she's leaning on his shoulder and giggling uproariously over something or other in between sobbing her eyes out — when what he's said finally catches up to her. _He called me Mrs. Nara. _

_He says he's taking me home. _

"I don't want to go home."

He glances up at her face as he bundles her belongings into his car. "Ya don't? Whatever for?"

"Don't wanna see Shika." She pauses to sniff. His car's a new one. Same make and model, but the leather's new. "Have a new car."

The last one must have been totaled after he'd gotten shot. The back windows were certainly wrecked after the gunfight. His sister had said something about buying him a new car. _I guess she really did just to spoil him. _

He doesn't start the engine, just sits there for what feels like hours with his hands on the steering wheel before he reaches into the pocket of his jacket and pulls out a white pocket square. "I think ya need this, Mrs. Nara."

"Don't call me that."

The embroidery's Hinata's style. Who else would stitch little puppies to the edges of a pocket square? She almost doesn't take it. He's clearly close to the girl. She almost doesn't take it, but her makeup's running, and she looks a fright.

"Don't call ya what?" He drawls. "Mrs. Nara? Aren't ya married now? Made a big deal, sending me 'n invitation ta the big day 'n all."

His truth tastes bitter, like a dish over salted and then left out to dry.

"Getting divorced." She hiccups. "Never want to see him again." If she was in a clearer state of mind, she wouldn't even think about it.

Divorced women are ruined women. She couldn't divorce Shika unless she could prove his adultery and that would break the hearts of the entire neighborhood. She would be ruined.

Papa would be ruined.

Uncle Shikaku and Aunt Yoshino would be ruined.

The rest of Shika's life would be ruined.

And most importantly, _she'd _be ruined.

Chouji would be crushed.

She wouldn't be able to do it to them.

"I don't believe ya." Kiba starts the engine of his Model J and they pull away into the night. "But I guess I'm a kind soul. Where're ya plannin to go if ya don't go home tonight? I'll drop ya there before I skip town."

"You're leaving town?" She hasn't thought far enough ahead. She doesn't know where she would go.

She can't go to Papa looking like this, in Kiba's car no less. She can't go to Sakura like this either, or people will talk.

There's nowhere in the world where she could really go.

"Yeah." He runs a hand through his hair as they crawl down the street. "New shipment's comin' in tonight. I gotta run 'n get it."

Everything's blurring together now. Her eyelids are heavy. She's giggled and cried her course. Everything in her's dead now.

"Don't have anywhere to go. Put me where you want."

She doesn't see his concern.

* * *

She wakes the next morning in a queen-sized bed, in a room with lavender curtains, a gigantic white dog sleeping on the throw rug on the floor, and a pounding headache.

The room overlooks the grounds that she'd seen twice now.

This is Ms. Hana Inuzuka's house in the middle of the Water Gardens.

" — Don't know what to tell you, darling brother." And that's the queen of the house. "But you can't keep her here, and you shouldn't have brought her home to begin with."

"Well, what else was I supposed ta do? She didn't wanna go home."

"You shouldn't have talked to her to begin with. You should have just waited for her husband to find her."

"Couldn't do that. She was drunk, and if I didn't own that joint, it'd be the night we met all over again but worse."

"Her husband can divorce her for adultery now. Is that what you want, Kiba?" The voices outside rise in volume.

"I didn't do nothing—"

"I _know. _I know that. I raised you. Of course, I know what sort of man you are. But they won't believe that. Given any chance, they'll rake you through the mud again."

"_Sis._"

"Give it up, little brother." Softer now. Sadder now. "I know you care about her, but it's better for you to let her go. Let her live her life."

"_Hana." _

The door's open just a crack.

Kiba has his head nestled in the hollow of his sister's neck, his eyes squeezed shut, shoulders shaking.

She has a hand tangled in his hair, her lips a plain, unadorned, faded red. Her eyes are also closed. "I know you're hurting, pup, but you gotta think this through."

Ino turns away.

It's such a private, intimate moment.

_Sis was the one ta raise me. Taught me everything I knew. _

"When it comes down to it, she's married now. She didn't choose you. You could choose her a thousand times, but she didn't choose you."

Kiba chokes.

And that's true isn't it? When it came down to it, she didn't choose him.

She chose to do what would make Papa happy, what would make society happy, what brought her selfish joy.

She'd thought she wanted to see him hurt not three months ago, but this, this isn't what she wants. She never wants to hear this again. Never wants to hear him so cut up. So _broken. _

In her memories, Kiba is always smiling, always golden.

But he's only human, and humans grieve. Humans break.

And humans hurt each other for no good reason except their own selfish pride.

She can't stand the scene she's watching. She turns away to look back out the window.

A cold wet nose bumps the back of her legs. It's a miracle she doesn't scream, but she doesn't doubt that there's worse waiting for her if she does. She turns to find the large white dog that was asleep on the throw rug now fully awake and looking up at her with surprisingly intelligent dark eyes.

She pats it softly with a hand. Papa had never approved of owning animals in the house, much less a dog like this large white mix-breed mutt...though she supposes that now since she doesn't live in Papa's house anymore, she could fill her house with as many animals as she likes.

Damn Shika, and damn his opinions on animals too. It's her house to do what she pleases with. Maybe she'll fill the house with six cats next and see how he likes it.

"Are you Kiba's dog?" She asks it, though it can hardly answer her. _If you are, you should be loyal and pick your owner's side. I bet he'd never hurt you. _

It's taken her some time, but she does learn.

She's good at denial, but some things she can admit even if she has to learn them the hard way.

_I threw away my happiness with both hands. Why did I do that? _

She can only surmise that perhaps she was afraid, and fear made her stupid. _Why did I have to take a good heart and break it? _

Maybe she is like Shikamaru had told her at age fifteen. _You're mean, Ino, and you're cruelest to those who love you most, because you know you'll get away with it. _

The dog drools on her leg.

She doesn't push him away, just stands there for a long, long time, her back against the window, one hand braced against the ledge.

"Akamaru." Ms. Inuzuka calls. "Come here, boy."

The dog, Akamaru, whines and casts her one more glance, but goes. "Your dog?" Ino asks, with a social polish she does not feel.

"My little brother's. I've dogs of my own." Ms. Inuzuka casts her an unimpressed look. "I'm taking you back to your house now, Mrs. Nara. Let's try to make this as painless as possible." She smiles, teeth glinting in the early morning light.

Somehow, Kiba's big sister has a maneater smile — the kind usually worn more by beasts than women, ones that inspire more raw fear than seduction.

She's had a chance to paint her lips and put on heels.

Ms. Inuzuka looks put together once more.

Ino has never felt more ungainly. She hadn't been able to change. This dress is wrinkled, and her makeup's most likely smudged and entirely ruined.

"You are?" She's never been alone with Hana Inuzuka before, and she's not sure she wants to start now.

"Like I said." And it's that smile again, the one that makes her look more wolf than human. "We can do this painlessly as possible, or this can go… _well_."

There's not much of a choice then. Ino steps forward with a confidence that is all too fake.

They make the walk down to the drive in silence.

Kakashi is leaning against the passenger side of a Chrysler 75 Roadster, his arms crossed over his chest. He's got a shirt and vest on, but no tie or jacket. He doesn't plan to be going anywhere then.

Both the Inuzuka siblings have expensive taste in cars if this is happens to Ms. Inuzuka's car.

"Queenie, I don't think this is the best idea you've had."

Ms. Inuzuka tilts her head back to look at him, the hint of a genuine crooked smile tugging at her lips. "'Spect not, Kashi. Ya gonna do something 'bout that?"

She'd dipped back into lower city drawl when speaking with her man, though he doesn't exactly do the same. It's rough around the edges, but the education's there. If Ino had the time to wonder, she'd want to ask about where he came from, and what he was doing before he fell in with the Wolves.

What did he do with his life before he became Ms. Inuzuka's man? It's not like he popped out of the woodwork all ready to be a mob boss's lover.

He shrugs. "Nah. You'll handle yourself. Just wondered if you knew."

Ms. Inuzuka laughs, a bright, biting thing. "I always do." She leans up, her hands against his chest, their faces a scant inch apart. "See ya for dinner, Kashi?"

The man swallows. Hard. "I feel like I'm about to become dinner." He murmurs.

She kisses him laughingly half on the lips, leaving a blood red lipstick mark on his face that he doesn't bother to wipe away. "Maybe I'll be nice and have someone else over to dinner if I scare ya so much. Ya never know… maybe it's time ta spice up the situation."

She doesn't talk like she means it.

They've been in a relationship for awhile then, Ms. Inuzuka and Kakashi.

"Queenie." He rumbles, more in jest than in real concern.

"I kid. I kid. You're always my best dinner partner." She nudges him out of the way and opens the passenger side door with a mocking flourish. "Your ride, Mrs. Nara."

It's like watching a negative inverse of Kiba.

Then, Kiba's never really mocked someone mean spiritedly in her presence. It looks like the sister he so reveres isn't exactly above that.

Ino draws her chin up and step into the car. "Thank you, Ms. Inuzuka."

Whatever she did last night, she still has to face the consequences of her actions.

She does stupid things, but she has to face the consequences.

* * *

Their ride is quiet for the most part, at least until they've left the Water Gardens.

"Can I ask you to leave my brother alone?" Hana doesn't drive with the same recklessness as her brother, but they are still going fairly fast. There's a barely concealed energy to the woman beside her, like skin over a raging storm.

"I didn't mean to meet him last night." She really hadn't.

Kiba just seems to appear out of the air at her lowest and stupidest points. If they were still in the middle ages, he'd be a knight in blood splattered armor.

Hana sighs, fingers tapping against the leather steering wheel with something like impatience. "Just assume that if you're in a joint, it's owned by the Wolves and Kiba has a good chance of bein' there."

"You're asking me to give up drinking." It's the same thing Papa's asked her several times now. She's never been able to quit.

"I'm asking ya ta stop bothering my little brother." Hana shrugs. "If it means ya have ta stop drinking, well bully for ya, I guess."

There's really nothing she can say to that, so they lapse into another silence for another couple of blocks.

"Do you dislike me, Ms. Inuzuka?" Yet another stupid decision she's making. What a stupid thing to say. _Of course, she dislikes me. _

"It's Hana. Ms. Inuzuka makes me wanna hurl something out the window." _If ya don't stop bothering me with inane questions, that something's gonna be ya._ The barely contained storm doesn't seem to be able to burst it's moorings any time soon. She has an iron will then, Kiba's older sister. "And no, I don't dislike ya." There's still the slow drawl of a lower district accent in the burrs of her speech, but it's not nearly so heavy as Kiba's.

_His sister was raised as posh as I was, but all the lace's been scrapped away and replaced with steel instead. What must that life have been like?_

Inuzuka Hana's had it all, lost it all, and clawed her way back to respectability while building a criminal empire.

"I jus' don't like ya either, ya know what I mean?" They turn sharply to the right. "He's the only baby brother I got." Hana turns to her finally, and Ino almost wishes she didn't. Her expression isn't angry. It's just flat, and somehow that's worse. "Do you know how many people I've killed to keep him safe, Ino?"

"More than one?" It's the long way back to the Bend they're taking, but even so, they'll be there in another ten minutes tops.

She thought she was afraid the night she first met Kiba, but that night has nothing on this clear morning.

Kiba Inuzuka, even in one of his angrier moods has never managed to pull this much fear from her as Hana Inuzuka's dead calm.

If Kiba's a puppy with a wagging tail, Hana's a wolf. A very angry wolf with big teeth.

"You're right. It's more than one. In fact, I've kinda lost count." Hana nods absently. "You know, Ino. I think we can see eye to eye on something. You wanna hear it?"

Ino most certainly _doesn't _want to hear it.

_I don't have a choice. _She nods.

"You make him cry again, and I put a bullet through your head. You understand?" She remarks on this as casually as she would remark about the weather. "Not like it's going to be hard. He'll be out of the country for at least the next few months."

Ino doesn't doubt that she'd do it.

_Don't make my baby brother cry, or you're dead meat. _

She swallows, mouth suddenly dry. "I understand."

_Put Kiba Inuzuka in your past where he belongs, Ino. _She learns slowly, but she does learn.

She doesn't want to be dead before her twenty-first birthday.

"Good." Hana smiles, suddenly bright and cheerful without the edge of steel she's been carrying all morning. Somehow, this is even more nerve wracking. "You're home now. Hope you can make the trip up your front walk fine." _Get out of my car. _

Ino pushes the door on the passenger side open and stumbles onto the front walk of the house on Elm Street.

Hana reverses the engine and is gone before she makes it to the front door.

* * *

**A.N. **The drama's starting! The drama's starting! (Hides behind a table)

Thank you so much for everyone who's reviewed, favorited and followed this story! Your support makes this journey so much fun.

~Tavina


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

* * *

"Let's raise a glass or two to all the things I've lost on you. Tell me, are they lost on you?"

— LP, "_Lost on You" _

* * *

"Did you know I was so worried about you that no one in this house got a wink of sleep last night?" Shika paces back and forth in front of her. All it does is manage to make her dizzy. "No, I don't love you. You knew that. But I'm your friend, Ino. And when you don't come home that worries me."

"We're not going to talk about what you like to do in the bed I sleep in when I'm not there?" She hasn't told him where she went or who she was with.

Sure, he might have worried, but she doubts he worried as much as he claims he did.

He flushes bright red. "A one time thing."

"How long have we been married, Shika?" She doesn't want to raise her voice at him. It isn't ladylike, but she does it anyway. "_How long?_"

"Two months." He spits back at her.

"Ain't much of an accomplishment is it, _dear._" She drawls. "So don't concern yourself about where I went." She strides past him into the hallway. "I'll call the maid to move your things to the other room. We're going through a bit of a troubled spot. I'm sure they won't judge you too harshly if you happen to take up with a lover, while your wife is being a cold bitch."

They should've made this distinction a while ago.

She should never have thought this would work even the slightest bit.

"Ino, you're frightening me."

She'd done it all for him really. Had done it for Uncle Shikaku and Aunt Yoshino. Had done it for Papa.

Had done it all for their expectations, hopes and dreams.

Had done it because she wasn't brave enough to take the path that would've made her happy.

But they're not the ones who have to live with it.

Papa, Uncle Shikaku, Aunt Yoshino, the random people at her wedding gawking at her pretty dress and perfectly done blonde hair don't have to live with it.

She has to live with it.

Might as well have some boundaries.

"Then move your own things. I'm burning all the sheets on this bed and going out to buy new ones later today." She doesn't look at him. "And you aren't ever going to ask where I'm going again. You don't have that right."

She wonders if she wrote Kiba an apology he would read it.

She wonders if anyone would deliver it to him if she did write one.

_What did he write to me? _

She hadn't read his letters.

She really wishes she did now, but castles in the air have never bought anyone anything.

"Ino—"

"You have work, Shika. They'll miss you at the office."

If she thinks about this all for too long, she starts to see a disturbing and unfortunate pattern to this whole series of events.

Did he think he could have his cake and eat it too? Keep his lover and also marry a perfect society wife?

He's the lawyer one. Why didn't he have enough of a spine to go to his father and tell Uncle Shikaku that he's in love with a widowed woman from Suna and be done with it?

She doubts that in the face of genuine love, Uncle Shikaku wouldn't have helped his only son in some way, and then they wouldn't be in this legal mess. Of course, there'd be talk, but people would pity her a little while, mangle him a little while, and then let it all go. They'd let it go. He'd have to have known that, so why didn't he—

But then, maybe marrying a widow from Suna wasn't what he wanted.

_I'm being an awful person. No, of course, he wouldn't do that. _

_Of course he wouldn't. _

There's too much of a mess in her mind. She has to talk to someone.

* * *

She ends up in Sakura's house, because at the end of the day, Sakura's been her sister since they first met over the row of hedges in the Circle all those years ago.

"Ino." Sakura stands there with her hands on her hips. "You look a fright."

Now that she's here though, she doesn't know what she should say, and what she shouldn't say.

"I went out to a speakeasy again last night." She looks away. "I think I made a mistake, Sakura."

She's grateful that Sakura gets up and shuts the blinds while pulling her deeper into the house. "You're going to tell me everything, Ino Ya—" They both stumble.

She's not Ino Yamanaka anymore.

"Ino." Sakura forges on while she drags Ino into the master suite. "I'm not your best friend for nothing, so you better spill the beans."

"You remember I told you four years ago that Shikamaru had a girl when he was in Suna for his exchange trip?" And if Sakura wants to know everything now, Ino's too tired to hide it from her.

What a mess life is right now.

What a mess.

"He didn't!" Sakura gasps, a hand over her mouth. "Ino! You told me he broke it off with the girl. This was done and finished with years ago."

"I lied." She's telling the truth now, and laying it all out like this in the light makes her stupid stupid choices ever more clear. "He's still seeing the girl."

"He's still—" Sakura's hands clench into fists. "Oooh. Shikamaru Nara, I'm gonna give you a piece of my mind."

Sakura hugs her tight. "Did he know that you knew about it?"

"I met the girl, Ms. Sabuki." A year ago, Shika had told her that he wasn't about to give up his lover if they ever did get married. "He was there."

How had she been so blind as to marry him when she knew that?

Why had she done that when there'd been someone else standing next to her who never failed to make her laugh?

Still, still.

It's too late now to turn back. "I found him with her in my bed, Sakura."

Sakura's grip on her shoulder tightens. "That slimy piece of—" She's almost shaking with rage. "That, that, _bastard. _To think I actually congratulated him three months ago. I can barely— Why—_Bastard._"

And all her life, Sakura's been careful of her language. When they were younger, Sakura had been painfully shy and self conscious of her forehead size so eager to keep on the good side of everyone she knew, but she's thrown all that away now.

Ino's touched that it's because of her. She really is.

Sakura pulls away so that the two of them are eye to eye. "Why did you do it, Ino? Why didn't you tell anyone?"

And this is the part that's the hardest to talk about.

This isn't just about Shika's problems. It's also about her own.

"I was angry." She hugs her knees and tells Sakura about it. "You know I danced with Kiba Inuzuka at your wedding?"

"Uh-huh." Sakura flops back on the bed. "Talk of the town, Ino. Talk of the town."

"He came around to the house, took me out driving."

Sakura sits up abruptly. "_Ino. You didn't. _You were the girl who he was with when he got shot?"

She nods. "We had a fight."

Unspoken goes that she had then done the most stupid thing in her life.

Fate is bullshit. She's responsible for exactly all of her poor decisions.

"But you like him." Sakura blinks frank green eyes at her. "You do like him, don't you?"

She's never said it out loud, hasn't even really given herself time to think about it. "I like him."

Sakura flops back onto the bed. "Well, this is a tangled web to deal with. Maybe that bastard husband of yours can go die in a ditch, and you'll be newly widowed and ready to marry again as soon as you can change out of your mourning blacks."

"Don't talk like that." Ino flops back onto the bed. "I don't want Shika to actually _die_."

No, she's angry with Shika, but like she says, she doesn't actually want Shika to die.

_Maybe if I ignore my problems long enough they'll go away. _

She rolls over with her face in Sakura's sinfully comfortable pillows.

_Oh, who am I kidding? Ignoring my problems is what got me into this in the first place. _

The two of them are so out of it that they do not hear the door to Sasuke's study click shut.

In hindsight, Ino will always curse that day.

* * *

She gets back rather later that night. Her logic being that, she really ought to give Shika enough time to burn the sheets and move out of the master suite, so she doesn't have to see him before at least tomorrow morning.

The car pulls into her drive, and she steps out into the cool night air.

The driver goes to park the car in the garage out back, and she makes her way up the walk.

She never gets to the front door.

An arm around her waist pulls her backwards into the shadow of the large elm tree in the yard, and a hand slaps over her mouth before she can so much as scream.

She impacts something hard that smells like expensive fabric and French wine.

"Sweetheart." He hisses when she tries to break free. "It's me."

_Kiba? _

This time, she's not the one slurring her words.

Granted, he's not quite at that stage yet, but he doesn't sound sober.

She grabs his wrist and attempts to pry his fingers away from her mouth. "Kiba." She mumbles. "Uncover my mouth if you want a conversation."

"Oh, I'm not in no mood for a conversation, Sweetheart." He drawls next to her ear.

He smells like expensive French red.

_I thought his sister said he was leaving the country? Why is he here, and why is he drunk? _

For all that he is a bootlegger, she's never actually met him when he's drunk. "What are you here for then?" She asks around his two remaining fingers that she still hasn't been able to pull away.

"Just wanna ask ya a few questions." His other arm is still around her waist, hard as a bar of steel and just as likely to let go of her. "Noddin' and shakin' your head'll do ya."

She's gotten most of his hand off her mouth now, so why doesn't she scream?

She hadn't expected to see him again so soon really.

And certainly not like this. "Ask away." She says. She's got a few questions of her own to ask him, but she doesn't think he's going to entertain her.

_What do you want to ask me so bad before you skip town? _

_Why would you come back here in the dark, and how did you know I was going to get back this late? _

_Have you sent someone to watch me? _

"That bluenose husband of yours." He's still drawling, but there's an almost bruising edge to it. "True he's a cheatin' bastard, yes or no."

_How did you hear about— I only told Sakura, and she would never tell you something like this. _

"Why are you asking?" She finally peels the rest of his fingers away from her face. "It's not your business."

"Oh, like hell it's no business of mine." He growls into her neck. She still can't see his face. "Ya oughta never have been Ino Nara. It don't even sound right."

His grip on her has loosened. She could run, but she won't. She knows in her bones that she's not running from him again.

She doesn't think he's going to hurt her. "You're not the marrying type. You said so at Sakura's wedding."

This really isn't the issue. It's the idea that she really has no idea what to expect from him.

Yes, she's always been a sucker for a bad boy, but Kiba Inuzuka isn't bad really. He's violent and murderous and various shades of bad news, but he himself isn't _bad_.

He spins her around and catches her by the waist when she stumbles backward.

In the moonlight, his eyes are as dark as coal, none of the golden highlights that made her want to smile as well. No, this time his dark eyes make her weak at the knees.

He chokes a laugh, something rueful in the tug of his crooked smile. "And if I told ya I said I wasn't the marryin' type 'cause the girl I wanted was engaged ta a goddamned bluenose bastard, what wouldya say?"

She blinks. "You wanted to marry me?"

He laughs, pressing their foreheads together until they're eye to eye. "My god, Sweetheart." He mumbles. "Ya ain't the sharpest tool in the shed are ya?" Still, he sounds a little bit amused. "I asked ya ta elope with me before ya somehow took offense ta somethin' I said an' wouldn't speak ta me anymore." He frowns. "An' then ya got yourself hitched ta this damned bluenose that I've always hated."

"I thought you were joking." She doesn't have any excuse this time. It isn't whiskey making her thoughts and words slow like old molasses. It's just Kiba.

Just Kiba Inuzuka and his fanged and wicked smile.

"I don't joke about two things, ever." He tells her. "What I love, and what I kill. You're never supposed to joke 'bout hearts and deaths."

She giggles. That just sounds so...so _him. Don't joke about love. Don't joke about murder. Everything else's fair game. _

She's missed him.

Missed him so very much.

"I didn't know that." If she'd known he'd been perfectly frank about eloping with her with or without Papa's approval, what would she have done then?

She doesn't know anymore, and the idea she's so close to him that she can taste the wine on his breath isn't helping.

"Well now ya do."

It's a slow thing at first, the press of his lips on hers, almost boyish in its gentleness, but then he sighs softly, breath still sweet with French Red.

She almost can't help it. She teases his bottom lip—

They spin around so fast, she's almost dizzily drunk on the taste of it, of him.

He pins her shoulders to the elm, rough bark digging into her skin through her rayon dress, but she's a bit too far gone to care about that at the moment.

He kisses her again, nipping at her until she finally does give in — _a fast learner. _Her mind unhelpfully supplies. _He's never done this kissing thing before. _

Her hands are tangled in his hair. When did they get there? She hasn't the faintest clue.

"Kiba—" She begins, though she hasn't the faintest idea what she wants to say next. Is it — _Kiss me again. I like getting kissed by you? _Is it— _Why are you here? Shouldn't you be out of town? _

Is it— _I'm married at the moment, but I'll gladly run away to Kumo with you, just say the word? _

She doesn't get to find out, because really all he's done is pause for breath. Her next words get swallowed by his lazy smile as he peppers her face with feather light kisses, all of them in some way shape or form a tease because — _that's not my mouth. _

_That's not my mouth either. _

_Kiba!_

"I knew it." He says triumphantly when he finally finishes his current bout of teasing. "Ya do like me, doncha?"

She doesn't respond, because really she's rather out of breath—

"_Ino!_"

It's Shika. He's home.

They hadn't even heard his car pull up in the drive.

He's standing there in his long gray working coat and his briefcase in his right hand. "Who's that with you?"

The moon comes out from behind the clouds.

There's dead silence for a brief moment before everything starts to happen at once.

Shika reels back as though he's been slapped. "What did you say to me just this morning, Ino? Was it something like 'it's not much of an accomplishment, _dear_?'"

"Oh, for heaven's sake." Ino snaps back at him. "You did much worse _in my bed—" _

"So it is true." Kiba's slow lower district drawl cuts through their argument like a wolf through a herd of sheep. "Ya are a no good cheatin' scumbag."

The hush in the air is broken by the click of a loaded revolver.

"If you shoot me the law will hunt you down." Shika still stands there, calmly holding his briefcase. "You are trespassing on my property, committing adultery with my wife, and about to shoot me. I don't think there's a God in Heaven who can save you now."

"I ain't gotta care about the law." Kiba growls. "Sasuke Uchiha's my best friend. Ya really think he's gonna let his daddy hurt me over this? I'm takin' out the fuckin' _trash._"

Another click. The moonlight gleams off the end of the gun barrel.

_This isn't a game. _

_He really is going to shoot. _

"Kiba." She whispers. "Kiba, no."

"_No?_" His grip on her shoulder tightens to almost bruising. "_No?_"

_He's shaking. _She realizes, somewhere dimly in her mind. _He's so angry he's shaking._

"This damned bastard threw ya over for another woman not two months after your fancy church wedding, an' ya wanna say no ta me pumpin' him fulla lead?"

"It isn't right." She whispers. Her voice can't go above a whisper, and Papa had always said her loud voice was one of the worst unladylike things about her. "You'll really go to jail for murder, please Kiba."

She doesn't know if he's even hearing her anymore, but she has to try. "Please."

The other time, when he'd killed someone, she hadn't seen it.

It hadn't been anyone she knew.

And yes, she doesn't want to be married to Shika anymore. She's mad at Shika, but she doesn't—

She doesn't want him to _die. _

She doesn't want to see him die.

And most of all she doesn't want _Kiba _to kill him.

"Have it your way."

She stumbles back, because he's suddenly _gone _not a trace of him remaining, no nothing, just a few boot prints in the soft spring mud where he'd been standing not a few moments ago, and Shika's suddenly shaking frame that proves that Kiba Inuzuka was ever here at all.

And this time, she really doesn't know if he's ever coming back.

She sits down in the dirt, suddenly bruised — bruised shoulders, bruised lips, bruised _heart._

_He's not coming back this time. _

_Not this time, Ino. Not this time._

* * *

She gets the news that Kiba left the country with the morning news. It spreads like oil, this gossip. He's off to France for wine grapes or something of the like.

Not that she believes for a moment.

He's not in France for the golden grapes, or whatever's the talk of the town now. He's there because she asked him not to shoot Shika last night.

And because his sister sent him out of the country to do something, so there's that as well. But he's largely not here because she asked him to not shoot Shika last night.

"I was thinking," Shika says that morning at the table from behind his newspaper. For someone who nearly got shot in his front lawn last night, Shika doesn't look it in the slightest.

She envies him in his cool. She really does. _My God, does nothing faze him? _

"I wasn't aware you thought much with your head." Ino mutters to her toast.

Shika, wisely, doesn't say much in response to that particularly juvenile comment. "We ought to hold a business meeting soon. I'm thinking dinner at 7 on Friday?"

"It's been two months. What's so important that it needs to be discussed?" She considers throwing the jam knife at his head. It would be so _so _easy.

She can see the headlines now. _Yamanaka Flower Heiress jailed for murdering husband. _With great restraint, she manages to set the knife down. _Papa wouldn't like it if he had to visit me in jail. _

"Surprised you didn't hear about it." Shika remarks, still hiding behind his newspaper. All she sees is the top of his hair. "There's been a fire in warehouse six."

That was the one that Uncle Shikaku was using to store deer antlers. Her father-in-law kept them for decorative and medicinal purposes. She hopes that none of them were damaged. A collection that large is hard to replace.

"When did that happen?" She suspects it was recently, but how recently she hasn't the faintest clue. _How did Shika hear about this before me? _

Their lives are arranged quite simply. Shika has his law firm; she has management control of the warehouses. She does all the accounting. Papa had sent her to an elite finishing school. She governs the house and decides who they hire to care for the house and the grounds.

All Shika does is manage his cases and his double life.

"Yesterday afternoon." Shika doesn't look up from his paper. "They couldn't find you since you were out, so they rung me at the office instead."

She'd been at Sakura's yesterday. She'd — _kissed a mobster in the front yard — _yesterday.

"Was there a culprit?" She can't imagine there'd be anyone who would want to burn Uncle Shikaku's collection of antlers, but there's always crazy people about.

The paper rustles as Shika shrugs. "Not that Fu could discern. He says he wants to talk to you about the specifics."

So that's how it was. "I'll ring him," she says. "Dinner at the Silver Bell, seven o'clock Friday." There's a lot they have to talk about.

They're overdue on discussing the accounts for this month anyway. There's money missing. She half suspects she knows where it's gone.

The Silver Bell is one of the restaurants in Chouji's family. They'll get a good reception there, as long as she calls for reservations beforehand. They'd probably get a good reception even without a reservation, but just because Chouji's an old friend doesn't mean that she shouldn't be polite.

Chouji hasn't done anything wrong after all. As far as she's aware, he doesn't know that Shika has a long term affair.

He'd probably be horrified. Chouji has morals like that.

Shika nods. "Friday at seven then."

And so it's settled. There's much to do.

But first, she has to check on the new shipment of tulip bulbs. They hadn't come cheap, these exotic tulips from the mountains of Kumo, so she better protect them and make sure they aren't damaged.

* * *

Six-thirty Friday night finds them in the car on the way to the Silver Bell.

Shika keeps his eyes on the road, conservative, slow, following every street sign. It's so boring she almost wants to scream.

But she doesn't, because that wouldn't help anything. They'll get there when they get there, and not a moment before.

She's not sure how to bring up the 200 dollar gap in the month's accounts. Shika isn't Shika if he hasn't planned three steps in advance.

He'd been the one to ask for a business discussion over dinner as well, so it figures that he probably already knows what she wants to ask and has quite a few ideas about how to handle the situation on her end already. Her childhood best friend didn't always beat her at chess because she let him do it.

His intelligence is really unparalleled.

She can't prove that he's giving money to Temari Sabaku, but that is where she expects it to have gone.

Her husband is straightlaced in his habits — he'd hardly have spent it at a speakeasy or used it to smoke cigarettes.

So it's gone to the only part of his life that has him morally bent out of shape then.

He judges her various moral failings, but can he judge her latest one? No, he can't.

_You're the one with a long term affair. _

So she sits in the car staring out at the passing streets and holds her silence. It almost kills her to do that — she's always been good at speaking her mind — but she does it anyway. She's got basic self respect and restraint down to a t.

Four years of finishing school has taught her that much, despite her current flapper habits.

She opens her own door when they arrive. No need to force Shika to act like a gentleman, and no need to cast herself as a damsel who can't even open her own door. She's his equal business partner.

She'll stand as such.

They sit, order, and spend the next fifteen minutes in a silence that only prolongs itself further with every passing moment. There's no food for them to distract themselves with this time, unlike their normal meal times which is when they normally meet, but there's also no reason for them to talk business before dinner.

There's an audience, since it is a public space, but at the moment Ino's in no mood to put on a show. Let the world know that Shika's in the dog house. She doesn't care.

She doesn't care, but she really should. Otherwise, someone will ask at some tea party or other, over a disgusting gelatin meat dish and she'd have to make some excuse about how he left the table cloth stained — _left the life I'm supposed to share with him like a revolving door more like. _

The Silver Bell is busy at this time of day, though there's a small empty table to their right with a reservation card. It'll be a small party next to them then, probably a couple out at a nice night.

Ino almost envies them.

It doesn't matter though, they'll be far away enough to give both parties privacy.

" — Right this way."

She catches a glimpse of wine red, and she has to turn her head to look. Who else would wear that _color? _

It's not Kiba.

It's Hana in a sleeveless halter-neck evening gown. The open panel over her back dips scandalously low. Despite not even showing her ankles, she still manages to look sensual. _It's probably the low back_, Ino decides. _It gives her entire outfit a modern feel. _

On someone else it might look whorish. On Hana Inuzuka it looks natural.

The man beside her has cleaned up well in comparison to the times she's seen him in the Water Gardens. Back then, he'd settled for a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the top button left unbuttoned, a belt, trousers and a pair of scuffed old leather shoes.

He's changed it out for a tailcoat and a pair of new shoes. It's a black tie situation tonight then, or maybe it's a black tie occasion every night they go out.

Ino wouldn't know. She's never seen them out in town before.

Kakashi pulls out Hana's chair for her with an over exaggerated bow. "Your seat, my fair lady."

She smiles at him over the edge of her white fan. "Why thank you, my knight."

Shika makes a vague sound of disapproval, but doesn't comment on it. He's always disapproved of this sort of public affection. Banter doesn't seem to suit him. Then, Shika has a little too much pride that way to be spoken of the way Hana speaks to Kakashi.

The two of them have a natural, teasing sort of feel to them, like they've known each other a long time and are comfortable with playing around.

Their food is here.

Ino tears her gaze away. _What would it be like to go out to dinner like that? _

The couple to her right banter back and forth, all smiles and soft laughter. Meanwhile, her own dinner is...pleasant.

_Now whose fault is that, Ino? _A small voice in her head snarks. _I can't think of a single person to blame. _

She shoves this voice away. There's no way she wants to hear about this now, especially when she's feeling unhappy with the happiness of other people.

She is Ino Yamanaka — _Ino Nara _— and she is not above throwing herself a pity party if necessary.

"Shouldn't we talk now, Shika?" She asks as she pushes a piece of lettuce around on her plate. It's good food; she just doesn't care for lettuce. She'll be sure to apologize to Chouji later and send her compliments to the cook.

"Did the warehouse fire situation get resolved?" He asks. "The firm has been overrun with bootlegger cases recently. I haven't had the time to get caught up."

He probably also has to manage his double life. It certainly wouldn't help that the firm is busy. She has several rather uncharitable thoughts about his endeavors in that regard.

"Warehouse Six was mostly empty at the time." She'd rung Cousin Fu to figure out what was going on. As it turns out, one of the new electrical lines had burst and set fire to the place. "We recovered most everything. They were laying electric lines out front and one of the workmen was careless."

They didn't lose much, all things considered. Cousin Fu'd said that actually most of Uncle Shikaku's deer antler collection had been actually enroute to Warehouse Eight.

"That's a relief." Shika flashes her an almost acceptable smile. It almost looks like a normal smile instead of a lying mask. "You know Ino, I've always thought of you as one of my best friends."

Friends don't do what they've done to each other, but she also calls him one of her oldest friends. "I can say the same of you." She lays a sheet of paper on the table. "I've been meaning to ask you, maybe it's just my bad account keeping, but there's 200 dollars that I'm unable to account for."

If there's anything she's good at besides flower arrangements, it's account keeping.

He clears his throat awkwardly. "An investment."

She narrows her eyes. _You're not going to get off the hook so easily. Maybe before I would have let you, but now? I'm angry with you now, and you can't get off so easily. _"We're business partners." All the investments should be discussed between the two of them.

Shika shrugs. "It was my own money, and two hundred isn't going to bankrupt us."

All true things. She despises it though. "What should I account for it as? Stocks? Bonds? A loan?"

"Call it an investment."

Oh, this man. She hates the man sitting across from her. "I should just accept that?"

"I promised I wouldn't say anything about it." Shika sets his fork down. "You can call it whatever you'd like to call it, Ino. I can't tell you what it's about."

He's trying so hard to be earnest she would believe him except—those were her bedsheets she had to burn afterwards. "I believe you." _As far as I can throw you. _

The two of them stare at each other for a long long moment. They say nothing.

At the other table, Kakashi drops to one knee. "Queenie."

The whole restaurant's gone quiet now, all the people in the surrounding area watching the spectacle.

"Queenie," he offers her a black box with shaking hands. "Will you do an old dog the honor—"

Hana catches his hands with her own, perfect assurance in her eyes. "Of course, Kashi."

The two of them beam at each other as the other patrons start to clap.

Of course. Just of course.

She used to love a good romance too. She'd cheered Sakura on, had congratulated Hinata effusively on the diamond ring, had read all the novels she could get her hands on. Now all it does is make her want to scream.

Exactly everyone has a better love life than she does, and it's all her own fault.

* * *

"Oh, Ino! It's so good to see you!" Sakura surges forward for a hug. "I've missed you!" Her cheeks are pink from the soft spring air, and her friend looks good.

She and Sasuke had apparently gone to Tea Country for two weeks to get away from the muddy streets here in Konoha. It seems to have done Sakura a lot of good though for the most part, Sasuke Uchiha looks exactly as he always has, dark hair, dark eyes, devastatingly sharp cheekbones and pale skin. It seems that not even the sun of Tea Country could tan him.

"I've missed you too." Ino takes her happiness from the thought that at least Sakura is glowing with such happiness that it makes life better.

They're here at Chouji's house for dinner. Since the Akimichi run a restaurant chain, he's always searching for new recipes, and as his friends, it is their duty to come to dinner parties and try them out. Sometimes the food is delicious; sometimes it's gag worthy. It's always a good time.

Chouji's still in the kitchen slaving away over the perfect dessert. Ino would have tried to help him, but she has no idea how to cook, having never learned, so she figured it would be a better idea to leave him to it. No need to ruin his perfect pastries or eat half his truffle without his permission.

"How was your visit to Tea Country?" Shika asks Sasuke, who has so far stood silently behind Sakura's exuberance.

Sasuke turns to him. "It was fine." Three words, but Sasuke's not as friendly towards Shika as he used to be. It's just three words, but something seems to forestall more conversation.

The tension in the room climbs three notches.

She has half an idea of how—

A bootlegger appearing on her front lawn. A conversation with Sakura. Between the two?

A doorway clicking shut.

So that's how. And now Sasuke is...judging Shika? She supposes the rumors of Uchiha passion are true then. Sasuke's judging Shika for cheating, how interesting.

Sakura turns to Sasuke with a slight frown on her face. "But you liked Tea Country." She says, deep green eyes turned up to her husband. "You told me you liked it there."

Sasuke glances down at her, the hard corners of his mouth softening just slightly. "I did like it there." The regard they have for each other hangs in the air calmly between them.

Ino's glad that Sakura's happy, she really is. Her friend had been teased mercilessly through school, and now Sakura will never have to listen to other people gossiping about her forehead or how book smart she was.

Sasuke's name and the Uchiha reputation will protect her from that now.

She's just at a loss as to how to proceed with the conversation. Shika's stewing about the insult paid to him even though he was asking out of polite curiosity. Sasuke wouldn't and shouldn't be bothered to apologize to him.

His judgement of Shika isn't exactly _wrong _though Ino expects that most people would judge her more than they'd judge Shika.

_She's _the one who walked into this marriage knowing all the facts.

At this moment, Chouji bustles out of the kitchen, finally done with arranging the dessert course for tonight. "Food is ready." He beams at the four of them gathered in his parlor with its flowery wallpaper. "I had to deal with a minor mishap with the macarons. They were about to collapse in the middle."

"I'm sure they're just fine." Shika rises from his armchair — he's over at Chouji's so often that he has his own designated armchair and place at the table.

Ino's over less often, but Chouji keeps a specific rocking chair that he fondly calls hers anyway. She doesn't think that any of them deserve a friend like Chouji. He's kind and generous and humble, steady like an old tree in the wind. So what if he's a bit of a glutton and that's made him rotund about the middle and plump about his face? No one ought to look down on him just because he doesn't fit the ideal image of beauty.

But they do, and Ino seethes with rage over the injustice of it all.

Somehow, he considers the two of them his oldest friends, which just...it makes her sad sometimes to think of it.

A cheater with a double life. A vindictive woman who can't make up her own damn mind.

_What did we ever do to deserve Chouji? If he ever sees our true faces, he'd be gutted. He thinks the world of Shika. He loves me like a sister._

"Oh well, if you think so Shikamaru. They might be salvageable enough to eat." Chouji beams at the simple praise. "Let's eat."

The five of them troop to the dining room where Chouji's organized the dinner party, little silver name cards atop each porcelain plate, napkins folded in the shape of roses. The simple cherry wood chairs match the dark color table peeking out from beneath a white lace tablecloth.

"You've outdone yourself, Chouji." Sakura is effusive, admiring the pretty centerpiece of white snowdrops in their glass vase. "All of this looks far too pretty to even touch, much less eat."

Chouji flushes to the roots of his brown hair. "You're too kind."

"It's not a kindness if it's true." Sasuke slides a chair out for Sakura before sitting down himself. "These macarons are the most beautiful I've seen outside of France."

Everyone tastefully avoids mentioning the meat gelatin in the middle of the table. That's the main course. No one ought to talk about the questionable edibility of the main course. Thankfully there's a very nice clam broth and baked ham to console them and their taste buds after having to eat meat gelatin.

"So you see, you needn't have worried." Here in Chouji's house, Shika is far more relaxed, even with him stewing over the insult Sasuke paid him earlier.

For a while, all everyone does is sample dishes and give Chouji their honest opinions.

Even the meat gelatin. "It tastes horrible, Chouji." Someone has to say it, so she's going to break out the big truths. "Like someone added sweetner to the worst part of pork and then made it into a jelly."

Chouji's face falls. "But it's so _popular_." He sighs. "People order it all the time. I just can't understand it. I thought with the five of us at least someone would be able to like it and tell me why."

"They don't have any taste buds, Chouji." Ino pats him on the arm. "You should keep serving it until people get tired of the fad."

"Then you can feel free to chuck this down the drain." Shika makes a face at the remnants of the meat gelatin on his plate.

Chouji breaks out into a grin, tilting up the corners of his eyes, and drawing out his dimples. "I'll be glad to do it."

For a moment, it's just the three of them again — Sakura and Sasuke fade into the background — they are happy and content in their lives, in their relationships with each other and nothing is wrong.

"Oh!" Sakura perks up, suddenly bursting with news. "Did you hear? Hinata's cousin got engaged this winter."

Everyone around the table suddenly forgets about the food.

"Really?" _How did you hear about that during your vacation all the way in Tea Country, but I didn't hear about it and I'm right in Konoha? _Ino leans forward. "Spill the news, Sakura. Neji Hyuga got engaged?"

That's another eligible bachelor of their generation deciding to tie the knot then. Pretty soon there won't be anyone in their generation who isn't married or at least engaged.

Well.

They are at that age where marriage is almost an absolute necessity after all, especially for women.

Who would provide for them if they didn't marry? If everyone had the financial security of a mob boss, then yes, maybe no one would marry quite as young as them, or even younger just for the sake of knowing that their lifestyles will be maintained.

"It's to a daughter of the famous weapons manufacturer in Iron Country. Apparently she was a pen pal of Hinata's and Neji accompanied her to visit the girl a few summers ago. Ling Weapons Manufacturing, you know? The one who designed the new machine guns during the last war?" Sakura chatters on, but Ino notices Sasuke's wince right after she mentions machine gun. His elder brother had fought in the Great War. He's probably seen first hand the after effects of mustard gas and machine guns. _Maybe I should mention something to Sakura so she doesn't keep offending her in-laws. _"We passed Mr. Hyuga on his way to finalize the engagement plans with Mr. Ling, and he was strangely happy enough to tell us where he was going and why." Sakura giggles. "I've never seen him quite so pleased."

Itachi Uchiha had arrived home whole, but there'd been an entire generation of young men who never came home. And even then, there were plenty who came home missing limbs.

Those her age had been too young to fight in the war. Those Papa's age too old, but look at anyone just the slightest bit older, and there's a distinct lack of young men.

"Oh, I envy you then." Ino laughs. "Seeing Mr. Hyuga look pleased? You're such a lucky one." Every time she's seen Hiashi Hyuga, he always looks like he's looking at something that hurts his eyes and smelling something unpleasant just beneath his nose.

She can hardly imagine how someone as nice and pleasant as Hinata or someone as vivacious and bubbly as Hanabi could be remotely related to Hiashi Hyuga much less be his _daughters._

"Anyway, anyway, that's how I know that Neji Hyuga's gotten engaged." Sakura waves a hand in the air. "So we should probably look into wedding gifts just in case we're invited." She winks. "Just a heads up, you know."

"I'll keep that in mind." Ino laughs. Trust this to be the reason that Sakura remembers the best gossip around. She's afraid they won't be able to find an appropriate wedding gift fast enough. _Oh, Sakura. The kindness in your soul will warm you on even your darkest days. Sasuke better appreciate your blossoming. _

"Oh! Another thing to keep in mind," Sakura happily trips on, gesturing almost widely at some future only she could see.

"What Sakura means to say is that we have two extra ringside seats for a boxing competition held later this month, and we wanted to know if you and Shikamaru would like to come along." Sasuke cuts in. "I've heard it was supposed to be a good show."

Shikamaru finally relaxes. He's pretending to get over the insult paid earlier then. It had only taken an invitation to an extraneous outing and even then it only worked because he couldn't very well snap at Sasuke in front of Chouji. "The firm's been overrun with cases recently. I'll have to pass."

Technically she shouldn't go without Shika, but she doesn't care to pander to him at the moment. Besides, she's never been to a boxing match before. Papa had never approved of the sport — _why would be go see two men beating each other like savages until one of them can't stand up, Cosmos? — _and she can't get better than ringside seats can she? "When are you thinking of?"

"Oh the twenty seventh, at 7:30 pm. We'll come by to pick you up in the car at about 5:30 and get dinner beforehand." Sakura seals all the plans. "I'm so excited that you're coming with us, Ino. It'll be so much fun with you there!"

Next week on a Friday night, she's going to see a boxing match.

Suddenly her gray mood is lifted. It can be like their teenage years again, when they'd go out together in knee length pastel dresses, Cupid's bows on their lips, rouged cheeks, and bling.

She never thought they'd be able to do it again after Sakura's wedding honestly, those sorts of outings to places where rebellious young women go. After all, married women are supposed to be maternal and dignified.

But then, maybe Sasuke's not so straight-laced as he looks.

Sakura did meet him in a speakeasy after all, and he's got ringside seats to a boxing match.

How into high society rules is he really, despite being the Chief of Police's son? Then, how many of them actually fit the perfect society ideals and have the money to carry the image, and how many of them are wearing paper masks as though their lives are a masquerade?

"I'll see you then." Ino chirps.

It'll be a good time.

* * *

**A.N. **This might be the last Thursday I update this for a while, because the end of semester is closing in on me, and I only have 700 words or so written of Ch 5 as of this Thursday. Sorry guys! Still, I hope you like the chapter, and I'll see you in the regularly scheduled fanfiction!

~Tavina


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